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LECTURES ON INDIA: 



ALSO, DESCRIPTIONS OF 

REMARKABLE CUSTOMS 

AND 

PERSONAGES 

IN OTHER 

PAGAN AND MOHAMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 




ILLUSTRATED BY 



NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS. 



BOSTON: 

< PUBLISHED BY CALEB WRIGHT. 

^- — I 

1S4S. 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, 

By CALEB WRIGHT, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. 




APR m:wh 



Amy ana Kevy OldS^ 
Washington u. C. 






COSTUMES 



AND 



EMAEKABLE PERSONAGES 



IN 



INDIA, 

BY CALEB WRIGHT. 




rHE AUTHOE HAS TRA\T:LLED MORE THAN FORTY THOUSAND MLES, FOR 

THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF COLLECTING INFORMATION RESPECTING 

THE VARIOUS RACES OF PEOPLE WHOSE PECULIAR MANNERS, 

HABITS, AND SUPERSTITIONS HE DESCRIBES. 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 

1848. 



Rev. Jeremiah Day, D. D., LL. D., formerly President 
of Yale College, says : — 
" Mr. Wright has recently lectured in seven of the churches 
in this city, to large and highly gratified audiences. I be- 
lieve his Lectures are doing much good, and hope they will 
continue to receive the patronage they deserve." 

While Mr. Wright was lecturing in the principal cities 
and towns in the United States, testimonials, similar to the 
above, were received from a great number of persons in 
eminent stations, anwng whom were more than twenty 
Presidents of Colleges and Theological Seminaries, viz : — 



Rev. E. Nott, D. D. 

" L. Beecher, D. D. 

" J. Edwards, D. D. 

" H. Humphrey, D. D. 

" Mark Hopkins, D. D, 

" S. North, LL. D. 

" Joel Parker, D. D. 

" B. Tyler, D. D. 

" B. Sears, D. D. 

'' R. Babcock, D. D 



Rev. J. Bates, D. D. 

" N. Bangs, D. D. 

^' H. J. Clark, D. D. 

" J. Carnahan, D. D, 

" A. Mahan, D. D. 

" E. Gilbert, D. D. 

'•' Benjamin Hale, D. D, 

" S. Totten, D. D. 

" Wm. Cogswell, D. D, 
Hon. A. B. Hasbrouck, LL. 



■^•5 




Safer, tlic Fouivder of the Great Mogid Empire. 











A Hindu of Bengal, of high rank, in full dress. The costume of the common people of 
Bengal is represented by an engraving in " Lectures on India." Lect. II. p. 4. 




A Mohammedan of BmgaJ, of high rank, in full dress. 




A Hindu Merchant of Calcutta. 




A Hindu Seixant, icith a Fan made of a Palm Leaf. 



10 




A Dancing Boy of Bengal. 



11 




A Dancing Girl of Bengal. 



12 




A Chxii~un of Rajpittana. 



* 



13 




A Byragee. 



14 




A Cidi Soldier of the Forests of Rajputatva. 



15 




A Rrijpul Soldier of Maruai 



16 




A Ctdi Chief. The Cidis are a tribe of Bobbers and Pirates in the north-west part 

of Hindustan, 



17 




Mohnum KJiaun, N(M> of Camhay. 



18 




An Afghan, 



19 




A Dooraunee of Afyhanisian. 



20 



^* » 




An Eusofzye of Afghanistan. 



21 




Siirajah Dowlah and his Sons. 



22 











Deputy Governor of Kamhoja in his dress of ceremony. 



2:3 




Meng-meng, King of Cochinchina, in his dress of ceremony. 



24 




A Siamese. 



DESCRIPTION OF 

COSTUMES AND REMARKABLE PERSONAGES. 



Baber, the conqueror of Hindustan, and the founder of the Great 
Mog\il Empire, was born in 1483, and was of Tartar descent. His 
empire greatly increased in extent and splendor until its decline, 
after the prosperous reign of Aurungzebe, the fifth in direct descent 
from this illustrious progenitor. In person, Baber was handsome, his 
address was engaging and unaffected, his countenance pleasing, and 
his disposition aflFable. (See engraving on page 5.) He was deeply 
skilled in legislation ; his knowledge of natural history was accurate 
and profound, and he held an eminent rank among the poets of his 
country. Though possessing many good qualities, yet, like Timur 
Beg and Gengis Khan, his progenitors, and Uke Alexander and Napo- 
leon, Baber was one of those scourges of the human race denominated 
great and glorious conquerors. 

The following graphic description of Hindu servants (see engrav- 
ing on page 9) is from a letter written by an English lady in Madras : 
" Servants are very indolent, but each has his separate work. There 
is one man to lay the cloth, another to bring in dinner, another to light 
the candles,* and others to wait on the table. Every horse has a man 
and a maid to himself — the maid cuts grass for him; and every dog 
has a boy. I inquired w^hether the cat had any servants, but I found 
that she was allowed to wait upon herself, and as she seemed the only 
person in the establishment capable of so doing, I respected her 
accordingly. 

" As you say you like to hear all about our domestic economy, ser- 
vants, &c., I must tell you of a thievery which took place last week. 
We lost a pair of sheets, and the loss was laid to the horse-keeper, who 
was fined two rupees, it being the custom to punish the servants for 
every misdemeanor just as if they were children. But the purloiner 
of our sheets was in reality A 's dress-boy, who had stolen them 

* The English residents in India dine after sunset. 

4 



26 DESCRIPTION OF COSTUMES 

to make his own jackets. To avoid the expense of paying for making, 
he took them to a Coolie tailor, Avhich you may understand to mean a 
cobbling tailor, who sometimes cobbles for us, and is therefore obliged 
to do the servants' needle work for nothing, for fear of having hes told 
of him to ' Master,' and so losing Master's favor. Coolie tailor lives 
near my tailor, who is a grandee in comparison ; and Coolie, being very 
glad to have some good European materials to boast of, and extremely 
proud of his job, showed them off to my tailor. Grandee tailor was 
more used to the ways of Europeans, and knew that they did not give 
their good sheets for the servants to make jackets of; so he guessed 
they had been stolen, and told my ayah, and she told me, not out of 
any pretence of conscience or care of my goods, but because, as she 
said, Mrs. Staunton had told her, on hiring her, that she was to take 
care of my things, and that, if anything was lost, I would ' take away 
her bread,' meaning dismiss her ; and then she must ' eat up her own 
money.' It was hopeless for any of us to attempt to find out the 
truth, because the chances were even as to the dress-boy's being a 
thief, or the ayah and tailor liars ; so the only way was to give orders 
that two of the other servants should search into the matter : one alone 
would have just told a lie on whichever side suited him, but two were 
supposed to be a check on each other. Accordingly, there was a reg- 
ular form of trial held under a mango tree in the compound : * I 
watched them from the window, and a capital group they made. The 
butler, as judge, waving his arms in the air like the leaves of a cocoa- 
nut tree ; the criminal standing in the midst, looking more mean and 
crest-fallen than any European could manage to look under any possible 
circumstances ; the ayah, smoothing down her oily hair with her fingers 
as she told her story ; and the rest of the servants standing romid to 
make a kind of jury, assisted by all their retainers of hags and imps 
in the shape of old women and naked black children. A verdict of 
Guilty was brought in, and the thief, Chelapa by name, was of course, 
dismissed from our service. Then followed a variety of queer scenes. 

Chelapa would not go, but remained on his knees in A 's dressing 

room, his turban in his hand, stroking his shaven poll, and kissing the 
floor, in hopes of being forgiven. When he was sent ' out of that,' 
the butler came back with him to bespeak compassion : ' Sar ! Master 
boy, cry Sar ! ' Chelapa took the hint and began to cry accordingly, 
till, finding nothing would do, he consoled himself by abusing the ayah, 
telling her he would ' walk round the house ' every day till he could 

* Field, or garden, round the house. 



AND REMARKABLE PERSONAGES. 27 

find out some ' rogue business ' of her doing : to wliich, she says, she 
' made compliments ; ' but she was in reaUty so frightened at the threat, 
that she cried for three days. Then the tailor began to cry, for fear 
some harm should happen to him in the scuffle, and looked up in my 
face so piteously every time I went up and down stairs that I could not 

pass him without laughing. A asked the horse-keeper why he had 

submitted to a false accusation, and to be fined for stealing, when he 
knew he had done no such thing ; he answered, ' What for make 
trouble ? Master tell horse-keeper thief ; what use horse-keeper tell ? 
Horse-keeper make trouble. Master tell ' Go away ! ' The proba- 
bility is, that he was paid by the thief to take the blame." 

" We are now living at St. Thome, a sort of suburb of Madras, close 
by the sea-side, and comparatively cool. It is said to be a thievish 
place : we have two sepoys to guard the house at night. When we 
first came we were awakened at intervals by a most horrible yelling 
and screaming : we thought it must be drunken men, and scolded the 
sepoys for not keeping them ofi", but we found it was the sepoys them- 
selves, yelling for their own security, to frighten the hobgoblhis. Yes- 
terday I saw a slim young black creeping up my back-stairs outside the 
house, peering about in a sneaking, suspicious sort of a way ; and as 
soon as he saw me he ran off and hid himself, I thought he might be 
a thief, so I turned out all the servants to catch him, but he proved to 
be nothing but the dog-boy looking for shoes to clean. I asked him 
why he ran away in that foolish fright, if he was only employed in his 
proper business ; and I was told that he could not help it, for he had 
never seen the Mistress so close before, and she frightened him. 

" A is busily employed in translating into Tamul a book which 

we hope may be useful. The Moonshee transcribes it for him, and is a 
complete baby about it. I think he must spend all his time in copying 
it over and over. One day he brings ' to show Mistress a fair copy,' 
and the next day ' if Mistress please to look, a more fairer copy,' 
and he will stand for a quarter of an hour at a time in the middle of 
the room, making salaam, and twirling his mustachios, and stroking his 

manuscript. A works with the Moonshee while I scold the tailor. 

I scold him from the ' best of motives,' and here are my reasons : he 
is hired by the month, and paid a great deal more than he is worth, — 
dawdle that he is ! — but it is the only way of getting needlework done 
at all here. He often asks for a day's leave of absence, and often 
takes it without asking. I used to be compassionate to him at firet, 
believing his excuses ; but when I repeated them to Mrs. Staunton, she 



28 DESCRIPTION OF COSTUMES 

said they were all lies. One day he told me that his mother Avas sick, 
and that she would soon be dead, and he would ' put her out of the- 
way ; ' but Mrs. Staunton said that this mother had already died three 
times to her certain knowledge, and that I must forbid her ever being 
sick again without my permission ; so I gave my orders accordingly, 
and she has been quite well ever since. Sometimes he sits on his mat 
crying, and saying he is ' plenty sick ' himself, so then I send him 
away for half a day, with orders to come back quite well next morning, 
or I shall get another tailor ; and this always cures him. One day he 
asked me for five days' leave ' to paint his face : ' this did puzzle me, 
but I found it was on account of the Mohurrum, a kind of Mussulman 
carnival, when they all dress up, and paint not only their own faces, 
but those of all their animals." 

Hindu . dancing girls (see engraving on page 11) are generally 
dressed in long embroidered robes of fine muslin, and decked with 
jewels, ear-rings, nose-rings, bracelets, armlets, anklets, bands around 
the head, and rings on all the fingers and toes. Their dancing con- 
sists in moving slowly and gracefully in various directions, jingling 
their anklets and bracelets by running backward and forward upon 
their heels, turning slowly round and round, waving their hands, bend- 
ing from side to side, and gliding up to the spectators, performing many 
peculiar and graceful antics. The natives of India are passionately ' 
fond of witnessing these dances, and generally provide them for the 
amusement of their guests on all festive occasions. The dancing girls 
are bought when children, and adopted into a partnership to Avhich the 
income belongs as common stock: each rising in turn to the manage- 
ment of the general fund, as she acquires the right by seniority. In 
many instances this fund accumulates to an immense amount. Some 
of the best houses and handsomest temples in Benares have been 
erected by women of dancing notoriety. See " Lectures on India." 
Lecture ii. page 11. 

Those famihes Avho cannot afford the expense of dancing women at 
their religious festivals and weddings, employ Ba-yees, or dancing boys, 
(See engi'aving on page 10.) These are generally of the Mohammedan 
sect, and are richly dressed in colored muslin of the finest texture. A 
roll of silver tissue is wound several times round the waist ; the border 
of the ample skirt, the sleeves and the neck are richly ornamented with 
a broad silver ribbon, the feet are decorated with small bells,- and the 



AND REMARKABLE PERSONAGES. 29 

wrists with bracelets of silver or gold. The musicians who accompany 
them are generally their relatives. Sometimes musicians buy young 
children of their parents and teach them to dance. When they arrive 
at the age of fifteen or sixteen years, or are too large to dance as 
Ba-yees, they either learn to play on musical instruments, or quit the 
profession entirely. 

The Charuns and Bhats (see engraving on page 12) repeat verses 
of their own composition in praise of renowned warriors, and in com- 
memoration of victories, and loudly proclaim the achievements of rajahs 
and princes during public processions and visits of ceremony. They 
are also hired to become responsible for the performance of various 
treaties and promises. Should a Charun or a Bhat become responsible 
for a person who fails to fulfil his engagement, he goes into the presence 
of the delinquent, and kills either himself or one of his own relatives, 
imprecating the most dire vengeance of the gods upon him who ren- 
dered it necessary to shed innocent blood. They regard themselves as 
privileged races, and refuse to pay taxes to government. On one occor 
sion, in the city of Neriad, when the Bhats were required by Ragohali 
to pay a tax, " the whole tribe, men, women, and children, armed with 
daggers, repaired to an open space in the city, and, with a loud voice, 
proclaimed a dreadful sacrifice. They once more prayed for an exemp- 
tion, which being refused, they rushed furiously upon each other, and a 
considerable number perished before the astonished troops could disarm 
them. One man, more cool and deliberate than the rest, brought his 
family to the area before the durbar: it consisted of two younger 
brothers and a beautiful sister, all under eighteen years of age ; he first 
stabbed the unresisting damsel to the heart, instantly plunged the 
dagger into the breast of one brother, and desperately wounded the 
other before he could be prevented. This man was afterwards heard 
to boast of having sacrificed his father a few months before in the 
glorious cause for which he had now become a fratricide." * 

The Byragees, Fakeers, and other sects of religious mendicants, 
constitute a numerous class of persons who unite the several characters 
of saints, living martyrs, jugglers, robbers and cut-throats, which 
according to the superstitious notions of the Hindus, are not irrecon- 
cilable. (See engraving on page 13.) Singly, and in companies, 
they wander throughout India, stealing, plundering, murdering, and 

* James Forbes, Esq. 



30 DESCRIPTION OF COSTUMES 

committing the grossest acts of obscenity and violence ; yet these 
fanatics, professedly more holy than other men, pretend to Uve on alms, 
because labor is inconsistent with their ideas of a rehgious life. The 
followmg ludicrous account of an army of religious mendicants is from 
' Dow's History of Hindustan :' 

' " The security which Aurungzebe had acquired, by the defeat of so 
many formidable rivals, was disturbed from a quarter which added 
ridicule to danger. In the territory of the prince of Marwar, near the 
city of Nuggur, there lived an old woman who was arrived at the 
eightieth year of her age. She possessed a considerable hereditary 
estate, and had accumulated by penury a great sum of money. Being 
seized with a fit of enthusiasm, she became all of a sudden prodigal of 
her wealth. Fakeers and sturdy beggars, under a pretence of reh- 
gion, to the number of five thousand, gathered around her castle, and 
received her bounty. These vagabonds, not satisfied with what the old 
woman bestowed in charity, armed themselves, and, making predatory 
excursions into the country, returned with spoil to the house of their 
patroness, where they mixed intemperance and riot with devotion. 
The people, oppressed by these holy robbers, rose upon them, but 
were defeated with great slaughter. 

" Repeated disasters of the same kind were at last attributed to the 
power of enchantment. The ridiculous opinion gaining ground, fear 
became predominant in the opponents of the Fakeers. The banditti, 
acquiring confidence from their success, burned - and , destroyed the 
country for many leagnies, and surrounded the castle of the pretended 
enchantress with a desert. The Eaja marched against them with his 
native troops, but was defeated ; the collectors of the imperial revenue 
attacked them, but they were forced to give way. A report prevailed, 
and was eagerly believed by the multitude, that on a certain day of the 
moon the old lady used to cook, in the skull of an enemy, a mess com- 
posed of owls, bats, snakes, hzards, human flesh, and other horrid 
ingredients, which she distributed to her followers. The abominable 
meal, it was believed by the rabble, had the surprising efiect of not 
only rendering them void of all fear themselves, and inspiring their 
enemies with terror, but even of making them invisible in the hour of 
battle when they dealt their deadly blows around. 

" Their numbers being now increased to twenty thousand, this motley 
army, with the old woman at their head, directed their march, towards 
the capital. Bistumia, for this was her name, was a commander full 
of cruelty. She covered her route with murder and devastation, and 



AND REMARKABLE PERSONAGES. 31 

had her rear in the smoke of burning villages and towns. Having 
advanced to Narnoul, about five days journey from Agra, the collector 
of the revenue attacked her with a force, and was totally defeated. 
The affair was now become serious, and commanded the attention of 
the Emperor. He found that the minds of the soldiers were tainted 
with the prejudices of the people, and he thought it necessary to 
combat Bistumia with weapons Uke her own. The Emperor, in the 
presence of the army, dehvered to his general billets written with hi? 
own hand, which were said to contain magical encJiantments. His 
reputation for sanctity was at least equal to that of Bistumia ; and he 
ordered a billet to be carried on the point of a spear before each 
squadron, which the soldiers were made to believe would counteract 
the enchantment of the enemy. The credulity which induced them to 
dread the witchcraft of the old woman, gave them confidence in the 
pretended charm of Aurungzebe. 

" The Fakeers, after their victory at Narnoul, thought of nothing 
but the empire for their aged leader. Having rioted on the country 
for several days, they solemnly raised Bistumia to the throne, which 
gave them an excuse for festivity. In the midst of their intemperate 
joy, Sujait, the imperial general, made his appearance. They fought 
with the fury of fanatics ; but when the idea of supernatural aid was 
dispelled from the minds of the Imperialists, the Fakeers were not a 
match for their swords. It was not a battle, but a confused carnage : 
a few owed their lives to the mercy of Sujait, the rest met the death 
which they deserved. Aurungzebe, when he received Sujait after his 
victory, could not help smiling at the ridicule thrown on his arms by the 
opposition of an old woman at the head of an army of naked mendi- 
cants." See " Lectures on India," Lecture i. p. 18. 

The costumes of the Afghans, Dooraunees and Eusofzyes, differ 
considerably in different provinces. (See engravings on pages 18, 
19 and 20.) Some of their chiefs and nobles wear a linen shirt, 
wide drawers of silk, an under tunic of chintz which extends nearly 
to the ankles, an upper tunic of the same kind, but of different 
materials, a shawl girdle, a cap with a shawl twisted round it m the 
form of a turban, white cotton or shawl stockings, Persian shoes, and 
a large mantle thrown over the shoulders. The upper tunic is made 
of dark colored cotton cloth, satin, shawl or Persian brocade, and 
is not unfrequently a very costly and splendid garment. The mantle 
is also made of the same materials, and in winter it is sometimes lined 
and trimmed with expensive furs. The long shawl round the waist is 



32 DESCRIPTION OF COSTUMES, ETC. 

elaborately wrought, and, consequently, very expensive ; a good one 
costs from five hundred to one thousand dollars. The shawl on the 
head is of the kind worn by ladies in England and America, and by all 
rich men in India. The shawls of which tunics are made are covered 
with small flowers on a colored ground, and the mantle of the same 
material has very large flowers, such as are seen on the borders of 
shawls in America. When a nobleman is on a journey, he generally 
dresses in broadcloth. 

The ladies wear the Persian costume, and, of course, have an end- 
less variety of clothing and ornaments. The most remarkable parts of 
their dress are their trowsers of stiff velvet, or of elaborately wrought 
shawl or silk, and their jackets of velvet brocade, ornamented with 
rows of buttons and with broad lace, on which colored flowers are 
wrought. 

SuRAJAH DowLAH, Nabob of Bengal, (see engraving on page 21,) 
was educated an Oriental prince, and, by indulgence, had acquired an 
unusual share of princely vices. He was ignorant, voluptuous, impa- 
tient and headstrong, greedy of riches, proud of his power, and ambi- 
tious of triumph. In the city of Calcutta, in 1756, he crowded one 
hundred and forty-six British prisoners into a dungeon only eighteen 
feet square, called the Black Hole, and in one night one hundred and 
twenty-two of them died of suffocation. 

The Siamese wear less clothing than any other civilized people of 
the East. (See engraving on page 24.) The head and feet of both 
sexes are always naked, and the upper part of the body generally so. 
A piece of silk or cotton cloth, from five to seven cubits in length, is 
wrapped round the loins, the most respectable classes permitting the 
ends of the dress to hang loosely in front, and the lower orders passing 
them under the body and securing them behind. This difference in 
the manner of wearing the cloth is not left to the discretion of the 
parties, but enforced by law, or by custom equally imperative ; for the 
plebeian who infringes it, is liable to summary punishment from 
the followers of any person of distinction who may chance to meet 
him. In addition to the principal garment, a narrow scarf, about four 
cubits long, is sometimes worn either round the waist or thrown care- 
lessly over the shoulders. 



LECTURES ON INDIA 



CALEB WRIGHT. 



THE AUTHOR HAS TRAVELLED MORE THAN 40,000 MILES FOR THE 

EXPRESS PURPOSE OF COLLECTING INFORMATION RESPECTING 

THE VARIOUS RACES OF PEOPLE WHOSE PECULIAR 

MANNERS, HABITS, AKD SUPERSTITIONS, HE 

DESCRIBES. 




LECTUEE I. 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



LECTURE I. 



It is the opinion of some eminent geographers, that India, 
under the name of Tarshish, was known in the days of Solomon, 
and celebrated as the land of spices, gold, and precious stones; 
but, whether it be the Tarshish of the ancients or not, it has for 
a long time been justly regarded with great interest. Here, vast 
and powerful empires have successively sprung up and flourished, 
while Europe was in a state of barbarism. Long before Chris- 
tianity shed its light upon the world, India was the land of science 
and the arts. At the present time, however, its prominent char- 
acteristics are ignorance, poverty, and superstition. 

It is not my purpose to direct your attention to the whole of 
India, but only to that portion of it usually denominated Hindu- 
stan, or India within the Ganges. This is a large peninsula, pro- 
jecting into the Indian Ocean, south-west of the Chinese Empire, 
from which it is separated by the Himalaya Mountains. With a 
territory about as large as Mexico, it is supposed to contain a pop- 
ulation of one hundred and thirty millions, or more inhabitants 
than England, Scotland, Ireland, Russia, and the continent of 
America. 

The Hindus are of various dissimilar races, differing materially 
in stature, complexion, manners, language, and general character. 
The Rajpoots and mountaineers of the north are large and of great 
muscular strength, while the inhabitants farther south are gener- 
ally of small stature and of slender form. In complexion, they 
vary from a dark olive approaching to black, to a light, transparent, 
beautiful brown, resembling that of the natives of Northern Italy. 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



They are very fond of ornaments, such as rings in the ears and 
nose, with bracelets on the arras and ankles ; yet their dress is ex- 
ceedingly simple. 




The family in this engraving are in the usual Hindu costume. 
The dress of the male consists of two pieces of cotton cloth, each 
containing about two yards. The one, called the dhotee, is girt 
about the loins and extends to the ankles. The other, called the 
chadder, is worn over the shoulders. The dress of the female is 
called a saree, and consists of a single piece of cloth of from four 
to seven yards. One end of this piece is \vrapped around the 
loins, the width reaching to the feet ; the other is gracefully 
thrown around the shoulders. In some parts of the country, it 
also covers the head. The children wear no clothing until they 
are from five to eight years of age ; but tliey are frequently deco- 
rated with ornaments and jewels of considerable value. 

The food of this people, with but few exceptions, is vegetable 
The use of animal food is denied them by their religion, unlesi 
the animals be first sacrificed to some idol. At their meals, they 
use neither tables, chairs, kniv^es, forks, nor spoons. They sit upon 
the floor, and put the food into the mouth with the fingers of the 
right hand. They take their drink from a brass cup, which they 
never touch with the lips, but pour the liquid into the mouth. 
Fermented and distilled liquors are used only by the lowest castes ; 
but the use of tobacc'i is aUiiost wniversal, and here, as elsewhere, 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 5 

nas a most pernicious influence. Many of both sexes chew betel, 
a drug more fihhy, if possible, than tobacco itself. 

Most of the Hindu dwellings are rude huts, like the one in the 
engraving. The usual size is about eighteen feet long and twelve 
wide. The walls are built of mud, and the roof is thatched with 
straw or with the leaves of the palm. In cities, however, and in 
large villages, to prevent darrjage by fire, tiles are used instead of 
thatch. The cost of such dwellings varies from five to twenty 
dollars, according to the size and manner of finish. About one 
house in a thousand is built of durable materials, such as brick or 
stone. In cities they may be found from two to four stories high. 
These have flat roofs, and are built around a coiu't or open space 
in the centre. In some houses, the court is very large, and is dec- 
orated with fountains, trees, and flowering shrubs. Most of the 
windows open into the court. As Hindu dwellings have few or 
no Avindows towards the street, they appear very much like prisons ; 
and, in some respects, they are prisons ; for within their walls 
the females are incarcerated tor life. Such is the jealousy of their 
husbands, that they are never to be seen in the streets or in any 
public assembly. It is only the higher class of females, however, 
who are kept thus secluded ; among the common people, women 
are to be seen at work in the fields, or going to market with large 
bundles of wood, or other heavy burdens, borne upon the head. 

In the next engraving, you have a representation of the usual 
method of travelling. With but few exceptions, there are no 
roads : consequently, wheel carriages are seldom used. This ve- 
hicle is called o. palaiikeen. On the sides are sliding doors or Ve- 
netians. Its construction in other respects will be readily under- 
stood. The usual number of bearers is eight. Pour of these carry 
the palankeen thirty or forty rods ; then the others take it upon 
their shoulders; thus, alternately, they relieve each other. Beside 
the bearers, several other men are employed to carry the baggage 
and to bear lighted torches by night. The bearers ^^ and other 
assistants are changed once in about ten miles, or as often as 
stage-drivers change their horses. The traveller proceeds on his 
journey from seventy to ninety miles in twenty-four hours, at an 
expense of about twenty-five cents per mile. 

* "The palankeen bearers rarely quarrel with the people of the villasfes through 
which they pass ; but at the end of a stage they often dispute violently among 
themselves about the veriest trifles ; and, when they are excited, their language and 
gestures are most extravagant, so as to lead a stranger to apprehend serious conse- 
quences. A friend of mine, a Dajiish missionary, on his arrival in Madras, was 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 




Travelling in a Palankeen. 




Here is a Brahmin engaged in reading and explaining a poem 
containing some hundred thousand stanzas written on pahn-leaf. 
It is one of many others equally voluminous, and has been handed 

despatched to his station, in the interior, by palankeen. At the end of the first stage, 
the bearers quarrelled violently. As he knew neither their language nor chai-acter, 
he imagined that he was the subject of their quarrel, and that they intended to 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 7 

down from generation to generation for more than three thousand 
years ; it is written in Sanscrit, a dead language of a " wonderful 
construction — more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the 
Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either." It is a portion 
of the Holy Vedas. In a peculiar tone of voice, he chants the 
sacred text, stopping at the end of each stanza to translate and 
explain. His hearers listen attentively to the exciting narra- 
tive, now convulsed with laughter at some dexterous exploit, and 
then thrilled with horror at some dreadful calamity. All the re- 
ligious books of the Hindus, including the four Vedas, are called 
Shasters.* They are so numerous that an entire human life 
would not be sufficient for an attentive perusal of them. 




These men are celebrating the Huli festival. On this occasion, 
the people of all classes use the most obscene and abusive lan- 
guage, and, by means of large syringes, bespatter each other witli 

murder him. His imagination was so wrought upon, that he supplicated them, iii 
Danish, to imve mercy upon him, and offered them his money and his gold watcii, 
if they would spare his life and conduct him safely on his journey. They gazed at 
him with astonishment, not comprehending either his fears or his promises ; and his 
uneasiness continued until the next day, when he met with a European friend, who 
relieved him from all further apprehension, and advised the bearers to be more 
peaceable towards each other." — Hook's Travels in India. 

* See " Specimens of the Shasters or Sacred Books of the Brahmins, consisting 
of Songs, Legendary Tales, &c.," published by Caleb Wright, 



8 LECTURES ON INDIA. 



I 



colored water ; they also pelt each other with red and yellow 
powder, and with the mud and filth of the streets. Should a 
Hindu be asked why he conducts in this manner at the time of 
the Huli, he would say, " It is our custom, and it can be proved 
from the Shasters that it has been the custom of our forefathers 
for millions of generations." To the mind of a Hindu, whatever 
is customary is proper ; for he believes that the customs of his 
forefathers, civil, social, and religious, were instituted by the gods, 
and are therefore incapable of improvement. The effect of this 
belief is to keep every thing stationary. There is no progress in 
knowledge — no change for the better in any department in life. 
The fashion of dress, the form of agricultural and mechanical in- 
struments, the manner of erecting habitations, and the performance 
of various kinds of labor, are the same as they w^ere thousands of 
years ago. This fact may be illustrated by an anecdote. An 
English gentleman devised various plans of introducing improve- 
ments ; among others, he wished to substitute wheelbarrows for 
the baskets in which the natives carry burdens on their heads. 
He caused several of these useful articles to be constructed, and 
labored with much assiduity to introduce them among his work- 
men. In his presence, they used them with apparent cheerfulness, 
and even admitted that they were far preferable to the baskets. 
The gentleman was delighted with his success. On one occasion, 
however, having been absent a few hours, on returning somewhat 
unexpectedly, he was surprised to find all his laborers carrying 
the wheelbarrows filled with earth on their heads. 

Their unyielding attachment to ancient customs is the natural 
result of their religious belief. Any change, however slight, in 
the mode of labor or business, is a violation of religious duty. 
It is evident, therefore, that the comforts and improvements of 
civilized life can never be introduced among the Hindus until they 
become convinced of the falsity of their Shasters and the foolish- 
ness of their traditions. The first step in the process of reform 
and improvement is to renounce that system of religion which for 
thousands of years has held them in the most cruel bondage. 

The subject of the next engraving is beautifully sculptured on 
the surface of a large rock in the Ganges, and is also frequently 
represented by the Hindus in their paintings. An enormous ser- 
pent, having many heads, is coiled up in such a manner as to form 
a couch, upon which a Hindu divinity is sleeping. It illustrates a 
familiar legend in their Shasters. After the destruction of a 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



former world by a deluge, this divinity, whose name is Vishnu, 
composed himself to sleep on a thousand-headed serpent, which 
floated upon the surface of the waters ; during a nap of some mil- 




lions of years, a water-lily grew from his body; from tliis flower 
issued Brahma, the Creator. Having formed the world anew and 
created many of the gods, he proceeded to create man, when the 
four classes or castes into which the Hindus are divided issued from 
difl"erent parts of his body : the Brahmins from his head, the Kshu- 
tryus from his arms, the Voishnus from his breast, while the 
Shudras had their ignoble origin in his feet ; agreeably to which 
legend, the Brahmins are supposed to be entitled to a very high 
rank, while the Shudras are hardly regarded as human beings. 
These four classes have, from various causes, been divided into 
more than two hundred distinct castes. If one of high caste vio- 
late the rules of his community, he cannot receive an honorable 
dismission, and enter a lower caste, but is forever excluded from 
all respectable society ; repentance and reformation have no ten- 
dency to restore him. One of low caste, though ever so learned, 
wise, or virtuous, can make no approximation to a higher caste. 
T!ie distance between the Shudra, the lowest caste, and the 
Brahmin, is immeasurably great ; the Brahmin cannot even instruct 
the Shudra, but with the greatest precaution, lest he should be 
defiled. But, low as the Shudra is, he has an honorable standing 



10 LECTURES ON INDIA. 

in society when compared with the Parriahs, a race who are not 
regarded as having any caste. They, when walking in the street, 
must keep on the side opposite the sun, lest their filthy shadows 
should fall upon the consecrated Brahmin. It is not uncommon 
to see the lower castes prostrating themselves as worshippers at 
the feet of the Brahmin, and greedily drinking the water which he 
has condescended to sanctify by the immersion of his great toe. 
The pernicious influence of caste is strikingly illustrated by an 
incident related to me by Rev. Mr. Day, a missionary at Madras. 
As he was riding through a native village, he saw a woman lying 
by the side of the street, apparently in the agonies of death ; she 
had lain there about twenty-four hours, and, during all this time, 
the villagers had been constantly passing and repassing, without 
manifesting the least interest or sympathy. When Mr. Day asked 
them why they thus neglected this woman, and suffered her to lie 
there and die, they replied, " Why should we take care of her ? She 
does not belong to our caste." A little rice-water, it appears, had 
been offered her, but she would not drink it, simply because the per- 
son offering it belonged to a lower caste. Had she tasted the rice- 
water, or eaten any food cooked by these villagers, or even drank 
pure water from their vessels, she would have lost caste. And 
what then? Her own children would have fled from her as from 
one infected with the plague ; her husband would not have per- 
mitted her to enter his house ; even the parental roof would not 
have afforded her an asylum for a single moment ; had any friends 
or relatives dared to associate with her, they too would have lost 
caste and been involved io the same disgrace. Thus she would 
necessarily become an outcast and a vagabond. 

In most of the large houses in India, there is an apartment which 
serves as a family chapel. The next engraving represents such an 
apartment in a very elegantly-finished house in the city of Benares. 
In the farther part of the chapel is the altar or shrine on which the 
idols are placed. Each member of the family is expected to offer 
up his devotions to these idols every morning and evening. 

According to their own standard, the Hindus are preeminently 
a religious people. The number of their gods, as stated in their 
Shasters, is three hundred and thirty millions. These fabled gods 
are not represented as acting in concert ; they fight and quarrel with 
each other, and with their wives and children, murder the innocent 
for the sake of plunder, and commit crimes, the bare recital of which 
to a Christian audience would excite the utmost horror and disgust. 



LECTUUES ON INDIA. 



11 



It is generally admitted, that neither nations nor individuals aim 
at greater purity of morals than their religion requires. We may 
expect to find any community below, rather than above this stand- 




•i^SM 



ard. This is true in regard to the Hindus. Their gods and god- 
desses being extremely vicious, the manner in which they are 
worshipped must correspond with their character ; it cannot be 
expected that the moral character of the people should be other 
than it is, a compound of every thing that is debasing. Gross 
and polluted as their divinities are, they are yet too refined and 
elevated, in their estimation, to be worshipped without imagery. 
Images are made in forms as various, unnatural, and horrid, as the 
imagination can conceive. When one of them is consecrated by 
the Brahmin, the divinity for whom it is designed is supposed to 
take up his abode in it, and is propitious or unpropitious accord- 
ing to the manner in which it is worshipped. 

The goddess Kali, on the next page, is represented as a woman 
of a dark blue color, with four arms, in the act of trampling under 
her feet her prostrate and supplicating husband. In one hand 
she holds the bloody head of a giant, and in another an extermi- 
nating sword. Her long, dishevelled hair reaches to her feet ; her 
tongue protrudes from her distorted mouth ; and her lips, eyebrows, 
and breast, are stained with the blood of the victims of her fury, 



12 LECTURES ON INDIA. 

whom she is supposed to devour by thousands. Her ear orna- 
ments are composed of human carcasses. The girdle about her 
waist consists of the bloody hands of giants slain by her in single 




combat, and her necklace is composed of their skulls. This mon-> 
ster divinity is one of the most popular objects of Hindu worship. 
She calls forth the shouts, the acclamations, and the free-will of- 
ferings of myriads of infatuated worshippers. Her temples are 
continually drenched with the blood of victims ; even human 
victims are occasionally sacrificed to her. In 1828, the Rajah of 
the Goands sacrificed twenty men at one time, as the promised 
reward of her supposed assistance in a single enterprise. 

The Hindus, like the inhabitants of more civilized countries, 
have secret societies. The most remarkable of these is the soci- 
ety of the Thugs, which boasts of great antiquity. In some re- 
spects, it is a religious society ; for its members believe that they 
are under the immediate guidance and protection of Kali, and that 
she permits them to obtain their livelihood by murdering travellers 
on the highway and then taking their property. It would be quite 
inconsistent with their religious princijiles, to rob any person until 
he is first deprived of life by strangulation. They affirm that this 
system was instituted by Kali, and is consequently of divine 
origin ; that, for many thousands of years, she assisted them in 
escaping detection, by devouring the dead bodies of their victims ; 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 13 

but, on a certain occasion, a Thug, contrary to her command, 
looked back to see how she disposed of the corpses, and saw her 
feasting on them. This circumstance so offended her, that she 
declared she would no longer devour those whom they murdered. 
They believe, however, that she still continues to assist them, and 
that she directs their movements by certain omens. When, there- 
fore, they are about to commence their excursions, in order to pro- 
pitiate the favor of Kali, they sacrifice a sheep, by cutting off its 
head, upon which the priest pours water and repeats the following 
prayer: "Great Goddess! Universal Mother! If this our medi- 
tated expedition is fitting in thy sight, vouchsafe us thine help 
and the signs of thy approbation." While repeating this invoca- 
tion, they watch tlie head of the victim ; if they observe tremu- 
lous or convulsive motions in the mouth and nostrils, it is to them 
the sign that Kali approves their expedition. When about t© 
murder a traveller, if they hear or see any thing which, according 
to their superstitious notions, indicates evil, they allow him to 
pass on unmolested ; but if the omen is esteemed good, they re- 
gard it as a positive command to murder him. In 1826, the East 
India Company adopted measures to suppress this system of whole- 
sale murder. Since that time, between two and three thousand 
Thugs have been arrested, tried, and convicted. Two hundred 
.and six were convicted at a single session of the court. It ap- 
peared, in the course of the evidence, that these prisoners, at dif- 
ferent times, had murdered four hundred and forty persons. In 
view of these facts, who is prepared to carry out the doctrine, that 
it matters not what a man believes, if he is only sincere ? 

On the next page is a view of one of the most celebrated temples 
in India. It is devoted to the worship of Kali, and is situated at 
Kali Ghat, three miles from Calcutta. The small building on the 
left, and the other on the right, are temples of Shiva. 

In Calcutta, the missionaries have established several schools, 
which are in a flourishing condition. The one under the super- 
intendence of Rev. Dr. Duff is attended by more than a thou- 
sand young men, belonging to the most respectable families in 
the city. Kali Prasanna Mukarje, one of the young men edu- 
cated at the mission schools, is a " Kulin Brahmin of the highest 
caste, and, on his mother's side, is a Holdar Brahmin. The Hol- 
dars are the original proprietors of Kali Ghat, and the hereditary 
officiating priests of the temple, to whom all the offerings at this 
shrine of idolatry belong. Kali Prasanna is heir to his mother's 



14 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



property, being her only son ; he is also heir to his uncle, who is 
a Zemindar, and one of the proprietors of the temple of Kali ; and, 
by marriage, he is heir to his father-in-law's property. He is 
thus the only male representative of three ancient and highly- 
respectable families, and, by inheritance, would have been the prin- 
cipal proprietor of Kali Ghat and the high priest of the temple." 




Besides what he was to inherit, he possessed property to the 
amount of about one hundred thousand dollars. He was fully 
aware that, should he become a Christian, he would, by the laws 
of his country, not only be deprived of his property, but would be 
despised by his countrymen, forsaken by his relatives, and regarded 
£is an outcast. Yet he gave up all, was baptized, and became a 
member of one of the mission churches. At various missionary 
stations which I visited were several other Brahmins, who had 
forfeited their title to large estates by becoming Christians. 



The figure on the left of the next engraving was found among 
some ruins in Behar. It is an image of Shiva, who, according to 
Hindu mythology, is the husband of Kali. He has eight arms and 
three eyes, one of which is in the centre of his forehead. The ser- 
pent with which he is decorated is rearing its head over his right 
shoulder. With one foot he is crushing an enemy in the act of 
drawing a sword ; with two of his hands he is tossing a human 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



15 



victim on the points of a trident ; in a third he holds a drum, in a 
fourth an axe, in a fifth a sword, in a sixth a portion of the Vedas, 
and in a seventh a club, on the end of which is a human head. 







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The figure on the right was copied from a sculpture on the 
wall of a temple at Gaya. It has four legs, sixteen arms, and 
seven heads. Its girdle and crown are ornamented with heads. 
In each hand it has an animal on a plate, as if dressed for food. 
It is dancing on four men's bodies, two prostrated and two ready 
to be crushed. Above, beneath, and on each side, were armed 
female furies dancing on human carcasses ; but these are not 
copied into the engraving. By the inhabitants of Gaya, this image 
is called Mahamaya, another name for Kali ; but it is a male, 
and, perhaps, was originally intended to represent her husband, 
Shiva. 

In the month of April, a festival in honor of Shiva is celebrated 
in almost every town and village. One of these festivals I wit- 
nessed in Calcutta. On the first day, at sunset, the worshippers 
assembled at different places, and danced, to the sound of drums 
and other rude and noisy music, before an image of Shiva. Then, 
one after another, they were suspended from a beam, with the 
head downward, over a fire. The next day, about five o'clock 
in the afternoon, each company reassembled and erected a stage 



16 LECTURKS ON INDIA. 

about ten feet in height, from which they threw themselves upon 
large knives. The knives being placed in a sloping position, 
the greater part of the thousands that fall upon them escape un- 
hurt ; but occasionally an individual is cruelly mangled. About 
forty persons threw themselves from one stage. None but the 
last appeared to receive much injury. He pretended to be killed, 
and was carried off with great shouting. During the whole of 
the night, Calcutta resounded with the sound of gongs, drums, 
trumpets, and the boisterous shouts of the worshippers. Early 
the next morning, forty or fifty thousand persons were assembled 
on the adjoining plain. Processions, accompanied by music, were 
passing and repassing in every direction. In the processions, 
many persons were daubed over with the sacred ashes of cows' 
ordure. Hundreds of these were inflicting self-torture. In one 
procession, I saw ten persons, each with more than a hundred 
iron pins inserted in the flesh. In another, each devotee had a 
cluster of artificial serpents fastened with iron pins to his naked 
back. In other processions, many had the left arm perforated, for 
the insertion of rods from five to fifteen feet in length. These 
rods were kept in constant and quick motion through the flesh, to 
increase the pain. Some had their tongues pierced, for the inser- 
tion of similar rods, which were occasionally drawn rapidly up 
and down through the tongue. One man, having a rod fifteen 
feet long, and, at the largest end, nearly one inch in diameter, 
commencing with the smaller end, drew the whole rod through 
his tongue. After wiping the blood from it upon his garment, he 
thrust it again into his tongue. Others were drawing living ser- 
pents through their tongues and dancing around like maniacs. 
In the streets through which the processions passed were devotees, 
with their sides pierced ; a rope passed through each incision, and 
the ends of the two ropes were fastened to four stakes driven into 
fhe earth. In this condition, the infatuated creatures dance back- 
ward and forward, drawing the ropes, at each movement, through 
their lacerated flesh. On the afternoon of the next day, swinging 
machines were erected at the places of concourse. They con- 
sisted of a perpendicular post, about twenty-five feet high, upon 
the top of which was a transverse beam, balanced on its centre, 
and turning on a pivot. A rope was attached to one end of this 
beam, by which the other could be elevated or depressed at 
pleasure. From this end, many of the worshippers were sus- 
pended by iron hooks inserted into the muscular parts of their 
backs. I have in my possession a pair of hooks which have been 



LFCTURES ON INDIA.- 



ir 



used for that purpose. These hooks I saw thrust into a man's 
naked hack. The rope attached to them was made fast to the 
beam of the machine, by vvliich he was lifted up twenty-five or 
thirty feet from the earth. It was then put in a circular motion 
on its pivot, and the poor sufferer made to swing with great ra- 
jtidity for some minutes. Tliousands and tens of thousands, an- 
nually, are thus cruelly tortured on these machines. 




This is a temple of Shiva, which I saw near Allahabad. It is 
surrounded by a high mound, composed wholly of the fragments 
of earthen bottles. On one of the last days of February, from 
twenty to forty thousand pilgrims assemble, each being provided 
with two or three earthen bottles, containing water from the 
Ganges, and a few copper coins. Such is the ofToring they ninke 
to Shiva ; and, believing him to be greatly pleased with the act, 
they dash and break the bottles against the temple. The next 
day, the Brahmins, faithful and true to Shiva, do not forget to 
pick up the money, and, as the trustees of the idol, keep it for 
him. That the temple may not be buried beneath the fragments 
of this novel offering, and that no coin may escape their vigilance, 
they also have the broken bottles removed to a short distance, 
where they had accumulated to the extent here represented. It 
cannot be difficult to understand why this peculiar mode of wor- 
ship was invented by the Brahmins. It may also serve as an il- 



18 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



lustration of the manner in which they take advantage of the 
creduHty of the people and secure a large amount of property. 




The two figures in this engraving are portraits of individuals 
whom I had the opportunity of frequently seemg. The one on 
the left is the portrait of a religious mendicant. The number of 
mendicants in India amounts to many hundreds of thousands. 
As a religious duty, they forsake their families and friends, re- 
nounce every useful occupation, and wander from place to place, 
begging their food. They are literally clothed with filth and 
rags ; the latter, in many instances, being less in quantity than 
the former. Some of them are decorated with large quantities of 
false hair, strings of human bones, and artificial snakes. Others 
carry a human skull containing a most fihhy mixture. If no 
money or food be given them by those persons of whom they so- 
licit alms, they profess to eat the filth out of the skull, as an act 
of revenge. One sect of them, professing to be extremely anxious 
to avoid destroying animal life, carry a broom, composed of soft 
cotton threads, gently to sweep the insects from their path. They 
also erect hospitals for the reception of aged, sick, and lame ani- 
mals. There is an institution of this kind in the vicinity of 
Bombay, which, in 1840, contained from fifty to one hundred 
horses, one hundred and seventy-five oxen and cows, and two 
hundred dogs, beside cats, monkeys, and reptiles. It has been said 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 19 

that paganism never erected a hospital ; but this is not quite 
true. I believe, however, that these are the only hospitals that 
have been erected by the worshippers of idols. 

There is another sect of mendicants, who are worshippers of 
Krishna. Though men, they put on the dress and ornaments, 
and assume the manners, of milkmaids. This is supposed to be 
very pleasing to the object of their worship; for, when he was on 
earth, he is said to have been very partial to the milkmaids, and 
to have married no fewer than sixteen thousand of them. 

The figure on the right of the engraving is a portrait of Puri- 
Suttema, an individual with whom I was well acquainted. For 
seven years he had been a religious mendicant. At length he 
read a Christian tract entitled " A Precept to the Inhabitants of 
this Part of the World, by the Missionaries." "By studying it," 
said he, " I found there was a great difference between the notions 
I had imbibed and the virtuous precepts contained in that book ; 
1 plainly saw that my former way was all deception, and that this 
book pointed out a better." He embraced that better way, and is 
now a preacher of the gospel. 

Many religious mendicants subject themselves to various modes 
of self-torture. On the next page are portraits of three individuals, 
selected as specimens of this class of persons. 

The devotee in the centre of the engraving I saw at a festival 
on the banks of the Ganges. He had kept his left arm thus ele- 
vated until it had become stiff and permanently fixed, the muscles 
and smews had lost all power of producing motion, and the flesh 
had become withered. The finger-nails, as you perceive, had 
grown to the enormous length of six or eight inches. During 
my residence in Hindustan, I saw as many as nine persons with 
their arms elevated in the position here delineated. 

The devotee at the right of the engraving has both arms ele- 
vated. This man I saw frequently in the city of Benares. In 
answer to my inquiries relative to his history, I was told that, in 
the earlier part of his life, he served as a soldier ; but, having lost 
his right leg, he became unfit for the duties of the army. In 
order to secure a livelihood, as well as a large stock of religious 
merit, he turned devotee. Having substituted a wooden leg in the 
place of the one lost, he took a small idol in each hand, and ele- 
vated them above his head until his arms became perfectly stiff 
and immovable. He usually had several attendants, who be- 
lieved themselves to be richly compensated for their services, by 



20 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



the merit of administering to the wants of so holy a personage, 
and by sharing with him the food which he obtained by begging. 




It may, perhaps, seem impossible, that a man should be able, 
by his own voluntary act, to keep his arms in this unnatural po- 
sition. One would suppose that in sleep, at least, the limbs would 
resume their proper posture. In the first part of the process, it 
becomes necessary to fasten the arms to poles lashed to the body ; 
but it requires no great length of time so to paralyze the muscles 
and sinews that they are no longer under the control of the mind. 

The devotee at the left of the engraving I also frequently saw 
at Benares. Under a wretched shed on the bank of the Ganges, 
he had been standing, day and night, for eight years. He had 
nothing to lean against but a piece of bamboo suspended by cords 
from the roof of his shed. His dress was a ragged woollen blanket 
saturated with filth. His face was smeared with the sacred ashes, 
his body greatly emaciated, while his feet and legs were so drop- 
sical and swollen as to require bandages to prevent their bursting. 
Sometimes he slept as he stood, but generally he was awake and 
busily employed in his devotions. In his right hand he held a 
string of wooden beads contained in a red bag. Hour after hour 
he repeated the names of the gods, and at each repetition passed a 
bead between his thumb and finger. Occasionally he laid aside 
his beads, and with his finger wrote, on a board covered with 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 21 

ashes, the names of the idol gods upon whom he depended for 
happiness in a future life, as the reward of his self-inflicted mis- 
eries. In this manner he had spent the last eight years of his 
life. I asked him how long he intended to stand there. His re- 
ply was, "Until Gunga calls for me," — meaning until death, 
when his body would be thrown into the River Gunga or Ganges. 

On one occasion, I saw a devotee performing a pilgrimage to 
the Ganges in a manner somewhat peculiar. He prostrated 
himself at full length upon the ground, and, stretching forward 
his hands, laid down a small stone ; he then struck his head three 
times against the earth, arose, walked to the stone, and, picking 
it up, again prostrated himself, as before ; and thus continued to 
measure the road with his body. I was told by a missionary at 
Benares, that he had recently seen a devotee prostrating himself 
every six feet of the way towards the temple of Juggernaut, from 
which he was then four hundred miles distant, and that he was 
accompanied on his pilgrimage by a poor cripple, who, unable to 
walk, was crawling along on his hands and knees. Another dev- 
otee has been rolling upon the earth for the last nine years. He 
has undertaken to roll from Benares to Cape Comorin, a distance 
of one thousand five hundred miles, and more than half of the 
journey he has accomplished. 

It is universally believed by the Hindus, that, if a man perform 
a pilgrimage, or swing upon hooks, or torture himself in any other 
manner, he will be rewarded for it, either in this life or in a future 
state of existence. No matter what the motive of the devotee 
may be ; if he perform the service, he must receive the reward. 
As an illustration of this delusive theory, permit me to relate an 
anecdote from their sacred books. 

Narayan is the name of a Hindu god. A certain man, notori- 
ously wicked, having a son of that name, was laid upon a sick- 
bed. In the hour of death, being parched with a fever, he called 
upon his son to give him water. The son being disobedient, the 
father called again in anger, and expired. The messengers of 
Yumu, the god of the infernal regions, immediately seized him. and 
would have dragged him to the place of torment, but they were 
prevented by the servants of Narayan, who took him by force and 
carried him to heaven. The messengers of Yumu, in great rage, 
hastened to their master and told him what had transpired. Yumu 
ordered his recorder to examine his books. He did so, and found 
that the man in question was a great sinner. Yumu then repaired 
in person to Narayan and demanded an explanation. Narayan 



23 LECTURES ON INDIA. 

made this reply : •' However sinful the man has been, in his last 
moments, and with his last breath, he repeated my name ; and 
you, Yumu, ought to know that, if any man, either by design or 
accident, either in anger or derision, repeats my name with his 
last breath, he must go to heaven." The doctrine of this fable is 
literally and universally believed by the people. Hence, when a 
person is in the agonies of death, his friends exhort him to repeat 
the names of the gods ; and, if he is so fortunate as to die with 
one of these names upon his lips, they consider it a sure passport 
to heaven. Many spend a large portion of their time in repeating 
the names of gods. Parrots are taught to do the same ; and such 
a spokesman commands a great price, especially among business 
men, who imagine that, by owning such a parrot, their spiritual 
treasures are accumulating while they attend to their usual occu- 
pations. 

The engraving on the next page is a view in Benares, the holy 
city of the Hindus. It is situated upon the River Ganges, about 
eight hundred miles from its mouth, and, with a population of two 
hundred thousand, is estimated to contain one thousand temples. 
Benares is not only celebrated for the number of its temples, and 
the benefits they are supposed to confer, but for the learning and 
sanctity of its Brahmins, for its schools of science and the arts, 
and, more especially, for its great antiquity. It is fabled to have 
been built by Shiva, of pure gold, but .has long since degenerated 
into stone, brick, and clay, in consequence of the sins of the 
people. It is visited by more pilgrims than any other place in 
India. When travelling from Benares to Allahabad, a distance of 
only eighty miles, I estimated the number I saw by the way at 
twelve thousand, or one hundred and fifty to every mile. 

The large building on the right, a part of which is to be seen, 
is a Mohammedan mosque. It stands upon the place once occupied 
by a very large and splendid Hindu temple, which contained an 
image of Shiva, said to have fallen on this spot from heaven. 
Soon after the commencement of the eighteenth century, Aurung- 
zebe, a celebrated Mohammedan conqueror, demolished the temple 
and built this mosque. The Hindus say that the indignant idol, 
to escape the impious hands of the Mohammedans, while tearing 
down the temple, threw itself into a neighboring well. This cir- 
cumstance rendered the water very holy and purifying. The 
well is in a spacious and beautiful pavilion, as represented near 
the centre of the engraving. It is built of stone, and consists of a 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 23 

roof supported by four rows of columns. On the left of the pa- 
vilion are three temples of a pyramidical form. The one in the cen- 
tre is esteemed the most holy temple in Benares, because it contains 




the celebrated idol which concealed itself in the well. The Brah- 
mins who officiate at this temple are also esteemed very holy. I 
will relate a few incidents illustrative of their character. They 
discovered that an aged pilgrim, who came there to worship, luid a 
large sum of money about him. They told him that, if he would 
give them !iis money, and then, in the presence of the idol, cut his 
throat, the idol would immediately restore him to tlie vigor and 
freshness of youth. The deluded man believed them. He gave 
up all his money, entered the temple, called on the name of Shiva, 
and then cut his throat from ear to ear. Rev. Mr. Smith, who de- 
scribed to me this horrid transaction, saw him weltering in his 
blood. Mr. Smith also stated that, soon after he commenced his mis;- 
siotiary labors in Benares, the Brahmins murdered a celebrated dan- 
cing girl in this temple, for the sake of the jewels which decorated 
her person. To prevent discovery, they cut off her head and threw 
it into the Gauges. They then cut her body into small pieces 
and strewed them about the streets, to be eaten by the dogs and 
vultures. 

There are more than eight thousand religious mendicants in 
this city who live on charity. Those who belong to the sect called 



24 LECTURES ON INDIA. 

Pui'Limhnnse have pi'ofessedly attained to a state of perfection, and 
are worshipped as gods. They are readily distinguished by their 
long hair and beards, which are never trimmed or cleansed, and 
also by their dress, which is neither more comely nor substantial 
than that which was in fashion before garments were made by 
sewing together fig-leaves. These reputed gods sometimes come 
in contact with men who have not attained to their state of per- 
fection. Some years since, Mr. Bird, an English magistrate of 
Benares, seeing a Purumhunse in his yard, ordered him to be gone, 
and threatened to horsewhip him if he ever saw him there again, 
A few days afterwards he came again, and found that Mr. Bird 
was faithful to his promise. The natives, who came running from 
every direction, were greatly enraged that an unholy foreigner 
should chastise one of their gods. Whatever power the whip may 
have had in exciting the wrath of this human god, still he did not 
dare to manifest it ; for, had he uttered a single angry word, he 
would have lost all claim to perfection and divinity. He therefore 
said, with much apparent coolness and unconcern, " It is all right, 
it is perfectly right ; for I recollect that, in a former birth, this 
magistrate was my donkey. I used to ride him beyond his 
strength, whip and abuse him, and now I am justly suffering for 
the sins thus committed." 

The next engraving illustrates a custom which prevails in the 
northern part of Bengal. I allude to a species of infanticide. 
When an infant declines in health, the mother imagines that it is 
under the influence of an evil spirit, to appease whose wrath, she 
places her child in a basket and suspends it from the branch of a 
tree in which evil spirits are supposed to reside. The infant is 
generally visited and fed by its mother for three days. If it be 
not devoured by ants nor birds of prey, nor die through exposure to 
the cold and the rain, it is afterwards taken home. In the vicinity 
of Malda, an infant thus exposed fell from its basket and was im- 
mediately seized by a prowling jackal. Fortunately, the Rev. 
Mr. Thomas happened to pass that way just in time to prevent 
the child from being devoured. He had the satisfaction of pre- 
senting it alive to its mother. On another occasion, as he was 
passing under the same tree, he found a basket suspended from 
its branches containing the skeleton of an infant, the flesh having 
been devoured by the white ants. 

Among the Jerejas, a fierce and warlike tribe, who live in the 
north-west part of Hindustan, great numbers of female infants are 






LECTURES ON INDIA. 



u 



put to death immediately after birth. In one village, in which 
were twenty-two boys, not one girl was to be found. The vil- 
lagers confessed that they had all been murdered. In another 







village were found fifty-eight boys and only four girls ; iii another, 
forty-four boys and four girls ; and, in many other villages, the 
number of boys exceeded that of the girls in nearly the same pro- 
portion. 

The Jerejas have a tradition, that a curse was once pronounced 
by a holy Brahmin upon all of their tribe who should suffer their 
female children to live. To escape the effects of this curse, and 
to avoid the trouble and expense of bringing up their daughters, 
whom they regard as worthless, they are induced to imbrue their 
hands in their innocent blood. Mothers are the executioners of 
their own children. They either strangle them or poison them 
with opiinn. That they should be the agents in sustaining so 
horrid a custom is the more extraordinary when the fact is known 
that they were born and brought up among other tribes, where 
female infants are reared with comparative kindness. But such is 
the debasing Intlncnce of heathenism, that natural affection is ex- 
tinguished, and all the kind sympathies of the maternal heart give 
place to the most savage ferocity. The infant, after it is destroyed, 
is placed naked in a small basket, and carried out and interred by 
one of the female attendants. 



26 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



The subject of the following engraving is the interior of the 
mission chapel in the city of Cuttack, in the province of Orissa. 
It is an interesting fact, that this chapel stands upon the very spot 
where once stood a temple devoted to Shiva. 




About one hundred miles south-west of Cuttack is the country 
of the Kunds. They worship a goddess called Bhuenee. To se- 
cure her blessing upon the soil they cultivate, they deem it im- 
portant at certain times to offer human sacrifices upon her altars. 
The victims, who must be in the freshness and bloom of youth, 
are procured by stealing children from distant villages and rearing 
them until they become large enough to be acceptable to the 
goddess. At the time of sacrifice, the victim is tied to a post ; 
the sacrificer, with an axe in his hand, slowly advances towards 
him, chanting to the goddess and her train the following hymn, 
which has been translated for me by Rev. Charles Lacy, one of 
the missionaries at Cuttack : — 



" Hail, mother, hail ! Hail, goddess Bhuenee ! 
Lo ! we present a sacrifice to thee. 
Partake thereof, and let it pleasure give, 
And, in return, let us thy grace receive. 
With various music on this festive day, 
Lo ! thee we lionor, and thy rites ohey. 
Hail, all ye gods who in the mountain dwell, 
In the wild jungle, or the lonely dell ! 
Come all together, come with one accord, 
And eat the sacrifice we have prepared. 
In all the fields and all the plots we sow, 
O let a rich and plenteous harvest grow ! 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 27 

Ho, all ye gods and goddesses! give ear, 

And be propitious to our earnest prayer. 

Behold a youth for sacrifice decreed. 

Blooming with tender flesh and flushed with blood ! 

No sire, no matron, rears him as a son ; 

His flesh, and blood, his life, and all, are thine. 

Without the pale of sacred wedlock born, 

We caught and reared him for thy rite alone. 

Now, too, with rites from all pollution free, 

We ofier him, O Bhuenee ! to thee." 

As soon as this hymn is finished, with one blow of the axe the 
chest of the devoted youth is laid open. The sacrificer instantly 
thrusts in his hand and tears out the heart. Then, while the 
victim is writhing in the agonies of death, the multitude rush 
upon him, each one tearing out a part of his vitals or cutting off 
a piece of flesh from the bones ; for, according to their superstitions, 
the pieces have no virtue unless they are secured before life is ex- 
tinct. Immediately they hasten with their bloody treasure and 
bury it in their fields, expecting in this way to render them 
fruitful. 

Please notice those boys sitting on the floor, according to native 
custom. There are ten of them, and they are Kunds. They had 
once been stolen from their parents, and were kept for the pur- 
pose of being sacrificed ; and, had they not been rescued by the 
agents of the East India Company, they would have been de- 
stroyed in the manner just described. But now they attend the 
mission school during the week, and on the Sabbath they meet 
in this chapel to worship that God whose kind providence saved 
them from an early and cruel death. 

Turn now to the young woman seated at the extreme left of 
the audience. She, also, when a child, was stolen from her 
parents and reserved for the slaughter. She was kept until she 
had attained her sixteenth year, and was rescued only four days 
before she was to have been off'ered in sacrifice. I heard the ac- 
count of her sufl'erings from her own lips, and saw the scars made 
by the fetters with which she had been confined. But now she 
is a member of the mission church, and is exerting a happy influ- 
ence in teaching others the way of life. 

In the course of a few months, the agents of the East India 
Company rescued one hundred and eight children, whom the 
Kunds were preparing for sacrifice. It may with propriety 
be said, they were fattening them like beasts for the slaughter ; 
for they believe that the goddess will not be pleased with the 



28 SITTING IN I>HERNA. 

sacrifice of young men and women, unless they are healthy and 
blooming. How different this from the blessed training of our 
children in the Sabbath school, that they may present their bodies 
a living sacrifice to God ! What a contrast between Paganism and 
Christianity ! Here a Christian chapel has literally been built 
upon the ruins of a heathen temple. It has also been rebuilt and 
enlarged, to accommodate the increasing number of worshippers, 
more than one hundred of whom are communicants. What 
has produced this change ? Why are not the cruel rites of Shiva 
still performed upon this spot ? The humble and unobtrusive 
missionary has proclaimed the simple doctrines of the cross, and 
the Divine Spirit has blessed his labors. 

END OF LECTURE I. 






INTERESTING INCIDENTS, &c. 



Sittings in I>]icrna. 

"Among the customs of the Hindus, there is one which is called 
Dherna. If a man demands satisfaction from his neighbor for 
some grievous offence, — if a creditor determines to pursue ex- 
treme measures with his debtor, to obtain what is due to him, — if 
a relative has been cheated by another out of his patrimony or his 
rights, and wishes to exact them from him, — they respectively 
take the poniard or a cup of poison in their hand, and, knowing 
that the offending party is at home, they sit down at his door, in 
dherna. That moment the defendant within is considered as 
under arrest. He cannot touch food, so long as his accuser con- 
tinues to fast; and, should he not come to terms, but drive, by 
his obstinacy, the plaintiff to despair, and allow him to use the 
dagger or drink the poison, his blood rests upon his head. This 
may be termed their ordeal — their mode of demanding satisfac- 
tion — their system of duelling — their dernier resort. 

" At the village of Pannabaka, in the presidency of Madras, there 
was a priestly Brahmin, who had lately come from Bellary, and 
had undertaken to attend upon the idol of the place. His was 
the privilege to levy contributions on the inhabitants for his sup- 



SITTING IN DHEKNA. 29 

port. A householder, who had for a time given him a halfpenny a 
day, refused to continue his allowance ; and, though the priest 
insisted upon the payment, he remained inflexible. The priest 
then threatened that, unless he received the amount, he would 
cut out his own tongue, and the householder would have to an- 
swer for giving him such a provocation. Incensed at the obsti- 
nacy of his opponent, he whetted his knife and cut off the tip of 
his tongue. He bled profusely, and his tongue swelled to a pro- 
digious size. The pains which he endured only served to render 
him more desperate, and he declared he would bring his whole 
family and sit in dhema, till he should obtain a sum sufficient to 
make a feast to his god. The householder was not to be intimi- 
dated, and remained as obstinate as the Brahmin. The priest, 
his wife, and his four sons, sat down, and kept their position at 
the door of the defendant ; but, during the second night, the fe- 
male was bit by a snake, and died in the morning. This event 
exasperated the priest ; he increased his demand ; and, as the vil- 
lage had remained neutral in the affair, he now laid a tax upon all 
its inhabitants. As he had not only sustained a personal injury, 
but had lost his wife while standing up for the rights of his order, 
and for the honor of his god, nothing less would satisfy him now, 
than a sum adequate to meet the expenses of the funeral and to 
make a feast to propitiate the deity who was off'ended by such 
daring sacrilege. Till these demands were met, he resolved to 
keep his station, and to retain the corpse of his wife unburied at the 
door of the house. As the people of the village rejected his claim, 
he then threatened that, in order to be avenged upon them, he would 
first kill his four children, and then put an end to his own exist- 
ence. It was the act of a Brahmin ; it might be viewed by Hindus 
as a pardonable offence ; it was done in honor of his god ; it was 
occasioned by the obstinacy of the people ; it was a sacrifice that, 
according to a monstrous mythology, would meet with a future 
and a bountiful reward; its helpless victims were to be raised to 
life again by the divinity whose honor it was done to vindicate. 
But it is not ours to make apologies ; we have only to record the 
fact, that this priest — this worshipper of Shiva — this monster — 
this raging fury — took his knife, laid hold of three of his children, 
and severed their heads from their bodies. It was not enough ! 
His eldest son tried to make his escape ; but this murderous 
father allured him back, and promised that, prior to his own self- 
destruction, he only wished to embrace him and bid him farewell. 
Thus invited back by the soft whispers of love, he returned ; but, 



36 SITTING IN DHERNA. 

the moment that he came within the grasp of the murderer, he 
laid him prostrate, as another victim at the shrine of superstition 
and revenge. His attempt to despatch himself ended in making a 
dreadful wound in the back of his neck. 

" Such, it may be said, are only solitary instances. It would not 
be right to quote such deeds to bring opprobrium upon a whole 
people, any more than it would be just to appeal to the horrid 
murders in Christian countries as a specimen of our own customs. 
But the cases are utterly dissimilar. The inhabitants of Panna- 
baka stood by and saw the horrid deed performed ; they seemed, 
afterwards, to be amused and highly delighted at the bravery of 
the act ; they expressed their resentment at one individual, and at 
the police-officer, who called upon them to interfere to prevent it ; 
and there can be no question that, if this priest had been restored 
to his liberty and his horrid altar again, they would have received 
him with enthusiasm, and revered him as a saint of superior sanc- 
tity. In a village some miles distant from the spot, the people no 
sooner heard of this murder, than they left their employment and 
proceeded to Pannabaka with every demonstration of joy ; and, 
after a few days, they returned, saying, ' The children are not 
indeed restored to life ; but why are they not ? It is entirely 
owing to the inhabitants, who have not made a feast,' which would 
cost two thousand rupees, to propitiate the favor of the god — a 
feast which the priest had declared to be necessary." — Rev. Wil- 
liam Campbell, Missionary to India. 

On a certain occasion, the Bhats of Marwar demanded a favor 
of Umra I., and, being refused, determined to sit in dherna. 
They assembled, with their women and children, in the court of 
the royal palace, and, with their daggers, commenced a horrid 
butchery. Eighty of their number lay weltering in their blood. 
See Annals and Antiquities of RajasVhan, Vol. II. p. 703. 

Kidnapping a Boy to be sacrificed to Kali. 

The following is an extract from an official document contain- 
ing the confession of one of the kidnappers : — 

" My name is Buhktea. I am an inhabitant of the Jeyntea ter- 
ritory. Oochmug Rungant Koor sent us three prisoners to seize 
a man for the purpose of offering him up as a sacrifice at the 
shrine of the goddess Kali. We therefore seized the prosecutor, 
Munoo ; but he screamed out for assistance, when the people of 
the village assembled and apprehended us. I never before seized 



BREAKING AN IDOL. 31 

any other individual. We are the Koor's subjects, and dare not 
disobey his orders, but have no hope of remuneration from him. 
It was our intention to gag our victim with the balls of cloth pro- 
duced in court. I have witnessed human sacrifices. The Koor 
offers them up every year — has for the last ten years — ever since 
he married the Rajah's sister. I cannot say exactly how many 
victims are offered up annually, but the sacrifice continues for four 
months. It is performed in secrecy. The victim is made to sit 
down, and, after being adorned with garlands of flowers, the throat 
is severed with a sacrificial knife. I have heard, though I never 
saw it, tiiat the wife of the Koor bathes in the blood of the vic- 
tims. She is always present at the sacrifices. The rite is per- 
formed with a view to procure progeny." 

The confessions of the other two prisoners were similar to the 
above. The judge of circuit observed that, " This atrocious 
practice on the part of the people of Jeyntea, although rumored 
and credited, was never before so clearly ascertained by facts. 
The emphatic appellation of khojghur (kidnapper) is generally 
known in this district ; and though persons have been, at various 
times, missing, on the borders, yet their disappearance has been 
commonly attributed to destruction by wild beasts." 

Breaking^ an Idol. 

" I have with me," says the Rev. J. Warren, "a Brahmin who 
has been a devotee. A yearning after some satisfactory knowl- 
edge of, and communion with, the Deity, had caused him to under- 
go many bodily mortifications, to perform many ceremonies, to 
make pilgrimages to many celebrated shrines, and to worship 
almost every thing, and in almost every possible way. He came 
at last to Burdwan, and was told by a spiritual quack that his 
Ihakoor was very powerful, and, if he would make certain offer- 
ings, and watch and pray before the idol with certain forms, some- 
thing satisfactory should be revealed to him. Poor Hurree had 
been cheated and disappointed so many times, that he was nearly 
faithless ; but he determined to try the experiment. He did all 
that was prescribed, and it completely failed. He was told to add 
more prayers and vigils, which he did without effect. He was told 
to scold the god for his inattention, and set about it early in the 
morning. He reproached him, argued with him, threatened him 
with personal indignity, and with exposure of his inefficiency ; 
but all to no purpose. He reproached him on account of his stu- 



BREAKING AN IDOL. 



jtid and absurd looks, (and you should see Hurree's imitation of 
the posture and countenance of the thakoor;) but it all did no 
good ; the idol was immovable in his silence. Hurree told him, 
' If you are angry, resent my abuse ; if you are pleased, help me : 
if you are any thing, let me see you do something ; do good or 
evil ; don't sit here looking so like a fool ; if you do not stir, or 
speak, or do something, I will knock you over.' And he did so : 
he took a large fragment of a broken idol, and, throwing it with 
all his strength, dashed the senseless thakoor from his pedestal to 
the ground, breaking him in many pieces. The people immedi- 
ately assembled, and would have used violence, had not Hurree 
been rescued by the police. The priests put the fragments of the 
idol into a basket, and carried it to the English magistrate, insist- 
ing that Hurree should be instantly examined on a charge of 
murder. The magistrate heard them ; Hurree admitted the facts, 
and gave his explanations. The magistrate stuffed his handker- 
chief into his mouth, and, as gravely as possible, examined the 
fragments of stone, deciding that English law could not convict 
Hurree of murder, as there was neither blood nor bones in the 
basket. He then ordered the police to see that no one mjured 
Hurree, and dismissed him, telling him, privately, that his decision 
as to the powers of the idol was quite correct." 




LECTURES ON INDIA, 



BT 



CALEB WRIGHT 



THE AUTHOR HAS TRAVELLED MORE THAN 40,000 MILES FOR THE 
y, EXPRESS PURPOSE OF COLLECTING INFORMATION RESPECTING 

•' THE VARIOUS RACES OF PEOPLE WHOSE PECULIAK 

MANNERS, HABITS, AND SUPERSTITIONS, HE 
DESCRIBES. 




LECTURE IL 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 




A RELIGIOUS CEREMONY AT THE TEMPLE OF JUGGERNAUT. 

Krishna, accompanied by two other images, is brought out of the temple and suspended from 

a lofty stone arch, very curiously wnnight. He is then swung by the 

Brahmins for his gratification, and the amusement 

of t/ie icorshippers. See page 28- 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



LECTURE II. 



The attention of the traveller, in the south-western part of 
Asia, is frequently arrested by splendid edifices, and occasionally 
by large cities, long since deserted by their inhabitants. They 
were built by the Mohammedans, who, about the year one thou- 
sand, invaded India, and, by a long series of the most ferocious 
and cruel wars, established the great Mogul empire. This vast 
empire, and other extensive countries in Asia, have, within the 
last hundred years, been annexed to the British dominions. 




RUINS IN DELHI, THE RESIDENCE OF THE MOGUL EMPERORS. 

The lofty arched gateway, in the engraving, once served as 
the principal entrance to a palace. Delhi is supposed to have 
been founded about three hundred years before the Christian era. 
In the course of a few centuries, it became the largest and most 



4 LECTURES ON INDIA. 

magnificent city in India. In 1398, Tamerlane, having 
slaughtered great numbers of the unoffending Hindus in battlq, 
and murdered one hundred thousand who had surrendered as 
prisoners of war, besieged Delhi. The city surrendered, was 
pillaged and almost destroyed. Delhi, however, not only recov- 
ered from this calamity, but attained to still greater splendor and 
magnificence than at any former period. In 1739, in the height 
of its prosperity, and when its population was estimated at two 
millions, it was taken by Nadir Shah. He extorted one hundred 
and thirty millions of dollars, as a ransom for the city, collected, 
in jewels and other valuable property, to the amount of two 
hundred and seventy-five milUons, and massacred one hundred 
and twenty thousand of the inhabitants. Since that time, Delhi 
has been pillaged and laid waste by other rapacious conquerors, 
until it has become almost depopulated. The part now inhabited 
is only seven miles in circuit, while the ruins cover a space much 
larger than the city of London. 

On a high, rocky eminence, commanding an extensive view of 
the city and surrounding ruins, is a very beautiful mosque, built 
by one of the Mohammedan emperors. It is of an oblong form, 
two hundred and sixty-one feet in length. Its walls, which are 
of marble, are surmounted by three magnificent domes of the 
same material, and at each end is a lofty minaret rising to the 
height of one hundred and thirty feet. 

For the purpose of procuring the praise of men and the favor 
of the gods, Rajahs, and other opulent natives, have, in many of 
the large towns, built choultries, or inns, for the gratuitous accom- 
modation of travellers. The choultry of Rajah Trimal Naig, at 
Madura, represented on the next page, consists of one vast hall, 
three hundred and twelve feet long and one hundred and twenty- 
five wide. The ceiling is supported by six rows of columns 
twenty-five feet high. The entire edifice is composed of a 
hard, gray granite, and every part of its surface is elaborately 
carved into representations of cows, monkeys, tigers, lions, ele- 
phants, men, women, giants, gods, and monsters. 

Choultries generally have but one apartment, and are entirely 
destitute of furniture of every kind. The ground, beaten hard, 
and covered with lime cement, serves as a floor, which, at night, 
is strewed with travellers of all classes and of both sexes, wrapped 
separately in their various-colored cotton cloths, and lying side 
by side like so many bales of merchandise in a warehouse. As 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



choultries are much of the time unoccupied, they become the 
favorite resort of bats, monkeys, rats, and serpents. Of these 
troublesome creatnres, the rats are the most annoying, for, while 
the travellers are asleep, they eat the skin from the soles of their 



feet, so as often to make it difficult for them to walk for some 
days afterwards. "I was awoke, and astonished, one night," 
says a missionary, " by something tugging at my ear. It was a 
rat. The moment I stirred, my visitant made good his retreat ; 
had my sleep been more sound, I should probably have suffered 
severely." At another time, as he was sleeping in a choultry, he was 
awoke by the cry of " Pambu ! pambu ! " — "A serpent ! a serpent ! " 
His bearers were on the alert ; — the serpent had passed between 
them and himself without biting any one. Having ascertained 
that it was not the cobra, which their superstitious reverence 
will not allow them to destroy, they killed it, and found it was a 
species of viper whose bite is fatal. The cobra, and various 
other reptiles, receive religious homage. Inanimate objects are 
also deified. Of this numerous class of divinities is the Ganges. 
The Shasters, which are regarded with as much reverence by the 
Hindu as the Bible is by the Christian, contain these passages: — 
"If a person has been guilty of killing cows* or Brahmins, 
only let him touch the water of the Ganges, desiring the rerais- 
* See "Specimens of the Shasters," published by C. Wright, p. 14. 



g LECTURES ON INDIA. 

sion of these sins, and they will immediately be forgiven." 
And "bathing in the Ganges, accompanied by prayer, will re- 
move all sin." Millions of the Hindus, at a great expense of 
time, health, and morals, perform pilgrimages to the Ganges. 
Multitudes travel from five hundred to a thousand miles, and are 
absent from their home and business five or six months at a 
time. The Rev. Mr. Thompson, a Baptist missionary, informed 
me that, on one occasion, he saw more than three hundred thou- 
sand pilgrims assembled at Hurdwar, to bathe at the place where 
Brahma, the creator of the world, is said to have performed his 
ablutions. At two o'clock in the morning, when it was announced 
by the Brahmins that the propitious time for the ceremony had 
arrived, the immense multitude rushed down a flight of steps into 
the Ganges. Those who first entered the water and bathed, 
attempted to return, but the passage continued to be wedged up 
with the dense mass of those who were still descending. There 
were, indeed, other passages by which they might have returned, 
but that would not do ; it was not the custom. To return by 
another way would diminish the merit of the bathing. They 
endeavored, therefore, to force their way upward. Consequently 
a scene of great violence took place, which resulted in the death 
of six hundred persons. 

On the next page is a view of the junction of the Ganges and 
Jumna. It is believed that every person, of either sex, who, 
immediately after being shaved, bathes at the point of land where 
those two rivers unite, will be permitted to dwell in heaven as 
many years as the number of hairs removed by the razor. To 
obtain immediate admission there, many thousands of the pil- 
grims have drowned themselves here. 

The strip of land extending from the point at the junction of 
the rivers to the Fort of Allahabad, on the right of the engraving, 
is a desolate waste; but during an annual festival, which 1 
witnessed here, it was crowded with tents, and huts, and more 
than one hundred thousand pilgrims. On entering this vast en- 
campment, I saw several missionaries, who, in a small shed by 
the wayside, were preaching the gospel and distributing tracts. 
A little beyond was the bazaar, or market, where food and various 
kinds of merchandise were exposed for sale. In a conspicuous 
place, near the bazaar, was a man seated upon a mat, and sur- 
rounded by roots, herbs, lizard-skins, and dried snakes ; profess- 
ing the ability, like the empirics of more enlightened lands, to 



LECTURES ON INDIA, 7 

cure incurable diseases, and set death at defiance. In another 
part of the encampment were about three hundred religious men- 
dicants. Many of them were worshipping small images. One 
commenced his devotions by ringing a bell, to arouse his gods 
and secure their attention. He then, for more than an hour, 




stood on one foot, repeating incantations. Another, having crossed 
his ankles on the back of his neck, was worshipping his idols. 

In the engraving, a barrier or fence is to be seen extending 
from the Ganges to the Jumna. Soldiers were stationed there, to 
prevent the pilgrims from passing it, until they had purchased of 
the East India Company tickets , granting permission to bathe. 
Near the barrier, I saw three devotees, who had held the left arm 
elevated above the head until it had become immovable, and the 
finger nails had grown to the length of six or eight inches. A 
portrait of one of them is to be seen on page 20, of the first 
lecture. As I approached the point, I saw two or three hundred 
barbers employed in shaving the heads and bodies of the pilgrims 
preparatory to bathing. I also witnessed a very shrewd method 
of getting rid of sin. The person who wished to become per- 
fect took in his right hand some money and a few blades of 
a particular grass, esteemed sacred. Then, with the same hand, 
he grasped the tail of a cow, while a Brahmin poured on it some 
water from the Ganges and repeated an incantation. The money, 



8 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



as a matter of course, was given to the Brahmin, the sins were 
reputed to pass along the tail of the animal, the grass and the 
deception remained to the pilgrim. Cows were stationed at six 
or eight places for the convenience of performing this ceremony. 
I next visited the point, and found the water, for a consider- 
able distance, crowded with the pilgrims. To bathe at this par- 
ticular spot was the great object of the pilgrimage. 




Here is a sick man, brought to the Ganges to die. His friends 
have carried him into the sacred stream, and are performing the 
last fatal rite. It consists in pouring a large quantity of water 
down his throat ; filling his mouth and nostrils with mud ; 
repeating the names of the gods, and shouting, " O mother Gan- 
ges, receive his soul!" Thus the sick, instead of receiving 
medical treatment, kind nursing, and appropriate nourishment, 
are, in many cases, hurried away to the Ganges, to be purified 
from their sins, by dying on its banks or in its waters. In Cal- 
cutta alone, nineteen hundred sick persons have, in the course of 
one month, been brought to the Ganges to die. Some are sufi^'o- 
cated by filling the mouth and nostrils with mud ; others are left 
where the rising tide will sweep them away. 

It is a remarkable fact, that when the sick are brought to the 
river-side to die, they cannot legally be restored to health. They 
are regarded by the Hindu law as already dead. Their prop- 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 9 

erty passes to their heirs, and in the event of recovery, which 
sometimes happens, they become outcasts. Their nearest rela- 
tives will neither eat with them nor show them the smallest 
favor. They are held in utter abhorrence, and are allowed to 
associate only with persons in similar circumstances. I have 
seen a large village, inhabited entirely by these wretched beings. 

Great numbers of the dead are thrown into the Ganges, that 
their souls may be purified. It has been officially stated that, in 
the course of one month, more than a thousand human bodies 
have been seen floating on the surface of the Ganges, in the im- 
mediate vicinity of Calcutta. At that place, and as far as its 
waters are agitated by the tide, it contains so much earthy matter 
and other impurities, that no object can be seen at the distance of 
two inches below its surface. Yet the inhabitants of the city use 
the water of this river for drinking and culinary purposes, and 
the numerous merchant vessels trading there are supplied with it 
for the homeward voyage. 

Pilgrims carry water from the Ganges into every part of India, 
to be used for religious and medicinal purposes. It is put up in 
glass bottles. These are packed in baskets, and suspended from 
the ends of a bamboo which rests upon the pilgrim's shoulder. I 
have frequently seen the roads thronged with pilgrims tlius ac- 
coutred. They resembled an immense army on the march. 
You will see one of them in the first engraving on the next page. 
He has stopped by the wayside, near Balasore, to worship cer- 
tain stones, an accurate representation of which you see in the 
engraving. There are his baskets filled with bottles of Ganges 
water. Having made his salam, he mutters a few words 
in a careless manner, and then takes a bottle of water from one 
of his baskets, and pours a small quantity of it upon the stones. 
To appease the wrath, or to procure the favor of divinities like 
these, splendid festivals are instituted. About ten o'clock at 
night, the worshippers assemble. By the glare of flaming torches, 
and amid the shouts and loud peals of barbarous music, great 
numbers of swine, sheep, goats, and buff'aloes, are sacrificed. 
Many of the worshippers throw themselves upon the ground, and 
wallow in the pools of warm blood flowing from the slaughtered 
animals. Then, leaping upon their feet, reeking with gore and 
filth, they jump and frolic, and twist themselves into the most 
wanton attitudes, and vociferate the most indecent songs, for the 
gratification of the image, or the rough stone before which these 
acts of worship are performed. 



10 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 




A Pilgrim at his Devotions. 




Here we have a scene in the house of a wealthy native, at the 
celebration of a festival in honor of Ganesa, the god of wisdom. 
Ganesa is represented as a very corpulent man, of a red color, 
with four arms, and the head of a white elephant. In front of 
him is a rat, upon the back of which he is said to perform his 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



11 



journeys. The men on the right are musicians. For the grati- 
fication of the idol, and the multitude of assembled worshippers, 
a dancing girl is performing. She is clad in garments of the 
finest texture, and of the most brilliant colors, and is decorated 
with a profusion of costly ornaments. Her movements are slow 
and monotonous, and occasionally very indecent, and her songs 
are plentifully spiced with amorous allusions. After singing and 
dancing for some hours, her place is supplied, either by others of 
the same class, or by playactors, jugglers, or mountebanks ; and 
the performance is thus continued from ten o'clock till sunrise. 
Many of the dancing girls belong to the temples, and are called 
the wives of the gods. At an early age they are united in wed- 
lock to the images worshipped in the temples. This strange 
matrimonial connection is formed in compliance with the wishes 
of the parents, who believe it to be a highly meritorious act 
to present a beautiful daughter, in marriage, to a senseless 
idol, and thus doom her to a life of vice and infamy. Dancing is 
deemed so disreputable by the Hindus that none engage in it 
but the most dissolute and abandoned. Here, as in other coun- 
tries, there appears to be an intimate connection between dancing 
and licentiousness. 




Here is the celebrated temple of Juggernaut, situated at Puri, 
on the western shore of the Bay of Bengal. There are many 
temples of Juggernaut, in various parts of the country, but this is 



12 LECTURES ON INDIA. 

the largest, and is deemed the most holy. The prmcipal edifice 
rises to the elevation of two hundred feet. In the two adjacent 
buildings, morning and evening, the dancing girls display their 
professional skill, for the amusement of the idols enthroned in 
the large edifice. There, also, three times a day, large quantities 
of the choicest food are presented to these wooden images. The 
people are taught that the appetite of these gods is perfectly satis- 
fied by smelling and seeing the food at a distance. This is a 
remarkably fortunate circumstance, since the Brahmins always 
take what the idols leave. 

The wall which surrounds the temple is about twenty feet 
high, and forms an enclosure six hundred and fifty feet square. 
On each side of the square is a gateway. The gateway in the 
engraving is through the base of a highly-ornamented tower. 
The small buildings, in front of the wall, are the shops of mer- 
chants, where clothing and ornaments are exposed for sale. The 
column on the right is a very beautiful specimen of architecture. 
The shaft, which is thirty feet high, is composed of a single 
stone. The figure on the top is an image of Huneman, a deified 
monkey. 

The only foreigner who ever saw the inside of this temple 
was an English officer, who, about thirty years since, succeeded 
in gaining admission, by painting and dressing himself like a 
native. When the Brahmins discovered that their holy place had 
been thus defiled, they became so enraged that all the English 
residing at the station were obliged to flee for their lives. Sus- 
pecting their pursuers to be more desirous of gratifying their 
avarice than their revenge, they strewed silver money by the way, 
and, while the natives stopped to pick it up, they gained time, 
and succeeded in reaching a place of safety. 

Twelve festivals are annually celebrated here in honor of 
Juggernaut. The most important of these are the bathing and 
the car festivals. These I witnessed, and there were present 
more than one hundred and fifty thousand pilgrims. Nearly 
half were females. There is not only great suffering among the 
multitude of pilgrims who, from distant places, attend these 
festivals, but many of them die in consequence of excessive 
fatigue, exposure to the annual rains, and the want of suitable 
and sufficient food. The plains, in many places, are literally 
whitened with the bones of the pilgrims, while dogs and vultures 
are continually devouring the bodies of the dead. Rev. Mr. Lacy 
informed me that, in 1825, he counted ninety dead bodies in one 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



13 



place, and that his colleague, at the same time, counted one hun- 
dred and forty more in another place. Great numbers perish on 
their way home. The pilgrim, on leaving Puri, has a long 
journey before him, and his means of support are often al- 
most, if not entirely, exhausted. The rainy season has now com- 
menced, and at every step his naked feet sink deep in the mud. 
At length, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, he sits down by the 
side of the road, unable to proceed any farther. His companions, 
regarding only their own safety, leave him to his fate. Dogs, 
jackals, and vultures, gather around him, watching his dying 
struggles ; and in a few hours his flesh has disappeared, and his 
bones lie bleaching on the plain. Since the erection of tliis 
temple, in the twelfth century, such has been the fate of millions. 




Here is a portrait of Juggernaut. I have taken his portrait as I 
saw him in the morning, while the Brahmins were making his 
toilet. He appeared to be well supplied with fine Cashmere 
shawls and valuable jewels, and the Brahmins were so arranging 
them as to display the beauties of his person to the best advan- 
tage. In the evening he is entirely disrobed, and his shawls and 
jewels, and also his hands and feet, which are made of gold, are 
carefully locked up in a strong box. This precaution is not 
through fear that the idol will convey himself away in the night, 
but to secure these treasures from thieves. Nor is the strong box 



14 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



I 



always a sufficient security, for on one occasion, upon opening it 
in the morning, jewels to the value of some thousands of dollars 
had disappeared. 

To some, perhaps, it may seem impossible for the human mind 
to become so debased as to worship an object having no higher 
claims to homage than this ; but, strange as it may seem, this 
monstrous form has received, and still receives, the adoration of 
a large portion of the human race. 

At one of the annual festivals. Juggernaut and two other images, 
said to be his brother and sister, are drawn out upon huge cars. 




This is the car of Juggernaut. The platform on which the 
image is placed is thirty-four feet square, and is supported by 
sixteen wheels, six and a half feet in diameter. The upper part 
is covered with English broadcloths in alternate stripes of red and 
yellow. Near the idol is the strong box in which his hands, 
feet, jewels, and clothing are deposited at night. Six ropes, or 
cables, are attached to the car, six inches in diameter and three 
hundred feet in length, by means of which the people draw it 
from place to place. A devotee has cast himself under the 
wheels to be crushed to death. As a reward for this act of devo- 
tion, he expects to enjoy health, riches, and honors in the next life. 

The car festival, which I witnessed at Puri, commenced on the 
Sabbath. I went to the temple, about two o'clock in the after- 



LECTUXIES ON INDIA. 15 

noon, just as the pilgrims, who had encamped in great numbers 
in the vicinity, were begmning to assemble. From an elevated 
position, on an elephant, I saw them pouring in from every di- 
rection, until four o'clock, when the concourse became immense. 
Every street and avenue leading to the temple was thronged, 
and the flat roofs of the houses were also densely crowded with 
anxious spectators. About five o'clock, a company of men pro- 
ceeded from the temple, making a horrid din with drums, gongs, 
and trumpets. Next came the idols, shaded by umbrellas of state 
and attended by various emblems of royalty. The vast multi- 
tude greeted them with loud and long-continued shouts. Jugger- 
naut, and his brother and sister, were now to mount their cars ; but 
from the infirmities of age, or some more obvious cause, they 
submitted to the awkward expedient of being dragged through 
the mud to their elevated seats, by the aid of ropes and Brabmins. 
A variety of ceremonies followed, but, as it was growing late, I 
returned to my lodgings. 

At sunrise the next morning, the gates of the town were 
thrown open, to admit the beggars. As they passed, I was in- 
formed by the English magistrate, by whose order they were 
admitted, that their number probably exceeded fifty thousand. 
They were the most weary, ragged, filthy, wretched-looking 
objects I ever saw. They had been prevented from entering the 
town at an earlier period, because of their inability to pay the 
tax which the Honorable East India Company demanded of their 
heathen subjects for the privilege of seeing their idols. The 
Company, I ascertained, had, in the preceding thirty-four days, 
received fifty-five thousand dollars as admission fees. Having 
already extorted so large a sum from the richer pilgrims, they 
could well afford, now that a part of the festival was over, to 
admit gratuitously those from whom no money could be ex- 
torted. It affords me much pleasure to say that this unrighteous 
source of gain has recently been abolished. The multitude of 
beggar pilgrims hastened onward to the cars, and appeared to be 
lost in the much larger multitude there assembled. 

Hearing the tumultuous sound of many voices at a distance, I 
looked towards the place from which it came, when I saw about 
a thousand men advancing, with green branches elevated in their 
hands. They rushed forward, leaping through the crowd, and, 
with mighty shoutings, seized the ropes of one of the cars, and 
dragged it forth in triimiph. Soon other companies, in a similar 
manner, dashed forward and put the two remaining cars in motion. 



16 LECTURES ON INDIA. 

The pilgrims are taught to believe that the cars are not moved 
and guided by the strength of the men who pull at the ropes, but 
by the will and pleasure of the idols. This being admitted, it 
must be that Juggernaut made a grand mistake, for he ran his 
car against a house, and was not able to extricate himself until 
the afternoon of the next day. But perhaps he was merely in a 
surly mood, for they believe that the cars move only when the 
idols are pleased with the worship. So, if for any reason a car 
stops, they suppose that the idol thus expresses his disapprobation. 
One of the priests then steps forward to the front of the platform, 
as here represented, rehearses the deeds and extols the character of 
the idol, in a manner the most obscene. No person, educated in 
a Christian country, can possibly conceive expressions so debas- 
ing and abominable as are used on such occasions. Should 
the speaker quote from the Shasters, or invent an expression more 
than usually lascivious, the multitude give a shout, or rather a 
sensual yell. The men again pull, with renewed energy, at the 
ropes, the idol is supposed to be delighted, and the car is permit- 
ted to move on. When dragged a short distance farther, it is 
stopped again by a priest, who slyly clogs one of the wheels. 
Then another scene of pollution is acted out with all its debasing 
influence upon the mind and morals of the people. In this man- 
ner, eight days are spent in drawing the car about two miles. 

In one of the apartments of Juggernaut's temple, there is a 
golden image of Luckshme, the wife of Juggernaut. Near mid- 
night, on the fourth day of the car festival, it was brought out of 
the temple, on a splendid litter, borne on the shoulders of men. 
Preceded by a band of rude music, and men bearing flaming 
torches, they soon approached the cars, when Luckshme was 
presented directly in front of Juggernaut, her husband. Immedi- 
ately the whole multitude appeared to be in a perfect rage, and 
rent the air with the most violent and clamorous yells. The 
women, who at this time were unusually numerous, appeared 
to be by far the most excited. In the midst of these dreadful 
yells, which had now continued several minutes, one of the priests 
took a garland of flowers from Juggernaut, and placed it around 
the neck of his wife. She was then borne off towards the 
temple, and the clamor ceased. 

I inquired the meaning of this strange and terrific ceremony. 
The reply was, that on the first day of the festival. Juggernaut 
had eloped with his sister. That, on the fourth, his wife heard of 



LECTLRES ON INDIA. 



17 



it, and, being stnng with jealousy, determined on revenge. Ac- 
cordingly, she set out in hot pursuit of her unfaithful spouse; 
and, having overtaken him at this place, she had given him a 
sound scolding. The shouting and yelling of the multitude was 
merely the effect of sympathy, they joining in the chorus with 
the scolding wife. This accounts for the active part which the 
vromen took in this ceremony. Juggernaut, like other peni- 
tent husbands who have scolding wives, promises to do better in 
future, and Luckshme is persuaded to be reconciled and to return 
home. 




Luckshme. copied from an Ancient Sculpture. 

You will readily perceive that this festival exerts a most perni- 
cious influence upon the community. The ceremonies are not 
only foolish, but most polluting in their tendencies and effects. 
Here crimes of the foulest character are sanctioned by the con- 
duct of their supreme god. It is not, therefore, a matter of sur 
prise that impurity, and all its kindred abominations, pervade the 
land. Let us, who live in this Christian coimtry, thank God for 
the revelation of his own glorious character ; and while we bless 
him for the Bible, and for all those spiritual influences which have 
made us to differ from the heathen, shall we not strive to send 
them the gospel ? Freely we have received ; freely let us give. 

On the next page is a view near the city of Benares. The 



18 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



building at the right of the ghat, or flight of steps, is a temple of 
Shiva. The one on the left is a resting-place for pilgrims. The 
water is in a tank about two hundred feet square. In November, 
about one hundred thousand persons assemble around this tank, 
to perform a variety of ceremonies for the benefit of the souls of 
deceased relatives. 




The pepul-trees, in the engraving, are supposed to be the 
favorite resort of such departed spirits as, from various causes, 
have not yet been clothed with new bodies. While I was en- 
gaged in taking a drawing of this place, several of the natives 
came and put lighted lamps in the earthen pots which you see 
suspended from the branches of the trees. On inquiring of one why 
he did so, he replied, " That the soul of my relative may be in 
light." 1 asked him how he knew whether the soul of his relative 
was in darkness or light. He said, "It is impossible for me to 
know that. But it is our custom, when one of the family dies, to 
suspend an earthen pot from a pepul-tree, and for ten successive 
days to bring offerings of water and rice, with a lighted lamp, for 
the benefit of the departed. On the tenth day, we break the pot, 
and make a feast for the Brahmins." In Calcutta, I witnessed a 
feast of this character, made by a wealthy merchant for the bene- 
fit of his deceased mother. The number of guests was estimated 
at two hundred thousand, and the expense of the feast, together 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



19 



with the presents made, was estimated at seventy-five thousand 
dollars. 

The efficacy of one of the numerous ceremonies for the benefit 
of deceased relatives is supposed to depend very much upon the 
place where it is performed. If performed at a certain temple in 
the town of Guyah, it is supposed that inconceivable benefits will 
be conferred upon the deceased. The East India Company, seiz- 
ing upon this superstitious feeling, have until recently made it a 
source of revenue by imposing a tax upon all who perform this 
ceremony at Guyah. The tax collected at that temple amounted 
to about one hundred and twelve thousand dollars annually. 




One of Shiva's Cattle. 



Ceremonies for the repose of the soul are exceedingly numer- 
ous ; but I will mention only one more. The son of the deceased 
procures one male and four female calves. These are tied to five 
posts, near an altar, constructed for the occasion. Four learned 
Brahmins sit on the four sides of the altar, and offer a burnt sacri- 
fice. A fifth Brahmin reads certain passages in the Shasters, to 
drive away evil spirits. The son washes the tail of the male calf, 
and with the same water presents a drink-offering to his deceased 
ancestors. The male and the four female calves are then gravely 
united in wedlock. During the marriage ceremony, many formu- 
las are repeated, in which the parties are recommended to culti- 



20 LECTURES ON INDIA. 

vate love and mutual sympathy. The Brahmins, having per- 
formed the duties of their sacred office, are dismissed with 
presents, including the three brides ; but the bridegroom is dedi- 
cated to Shiva, and allowed to run at large until old age carries him 
off. These vagrant calves may almost be said to constitute one of 
the numerous orders of religious mendicants, or holy beggars. As no 
provision is made for their daily wants, and as they are under the 
necessity of securing their living, they become very cunning, and 
are scarcely less impudent than the bipeds constituting the other 
orders of that fraternity. It is not uncommon for them to walk up, 
unbidden, to the stalls where vegetables are for sale, and help them- 
selves. Being esteemed sacred, the poor deluded inhabitants dare 
to use only the most gentle means of ridding themselves of their 
unprofitable customers. During the first year or two, these cattle 
fare rather scantily ; but, after having learned their sacred functions, 
they live well, and are the fattest and best-looking of all the ani- 
mals to be seen in Hindustan. 

The Shasters teach that the souls of the departed are divided 
into five classes. Those of the first class reunite with Brahm, 
the Eternal Spirit, and thus lose their individuality. The 
second are admitted to the various heavens of the gods. The 
third are punished in places of torment. The fourth again be- 
come the offspring of human parents. The fifth become beasts, 
birds, and insects. Hence, should a Hindu inhale an insect with 
his breath, he knows not but, in so doing, he has swallowed some 
departed relative — possibly his own father. There is one sect, 
who, to prevent so horrid a catastrophe, wear a strainer over the 
mouth. 

Hmduism leads its votaries into the wildest and most absurd 
vagaries in regard to omens, dreams, visions, evil spirits, and 
witches. In the vicinity of Puna, a person dreamed that the 
cholera, then raging in his village, was inflicted by a certain wo- 
man commissioned by Zurremurre, the goddess of the cholera. 
The villagers, on hearing this, immediately assembled and put 
her to death. In Orissa, a woman was told by her priest that 
Kali, the goddess whom she worshipped, had appeared to him in a 
vision, and had commanded him to inform her that she must sac- 
rifice her only child. In the night, while he slept, she cut off his 
head, and gave it to the priest as an offering to the idol. In Nag- 
pore, several persons died suddenly, which led many to believe 
that they had been destroyed by witchcraft. They therefore 
employed a man, who professed to be skilled in the art of magic, 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



21 



to discover the authors of their death. He put some oil and rice 
into a leaf, and began to repeat the name of each person belonging 
to the village. When he called the name of a certain woman, 
the oil, as he said, ran through the leaf This circumstance was 
regarded as sufficient proof of her guilt. She was immediately- 
seized, and whipped until death ended her sufferings. The death 
of the favorite wife of Rajah Zelim Singh, of Kotah, being 
attributed to witchcraft, he sentenced four hundred women to be 
put into sacks and thrown into a tank. It is stated by General 
Malcolm, in an official report, that, in the province of Malwa 
alone, in the course of thirty years, between two and three 
thousand females had been put to death for the imputed crime of 
witchcraft. 

Many of the Hindus believe that those persons who commit 
suicide become malignant spirits delighting in every kind of 
mischief. 




The scene represented in the engraving occurred in Ghaze- 
pore. A man persuaded his wife to permit him to burn her alive, 
that her soul might be transformed into an evil spirit, for the pur- 
pose of haunting and tormenting one of their neighbors, who had 
offended them. In Calcutta, a servant, having quarrelled with 
his master, hung himself, in the night, in front of the street door, 
that he misht become a devil and haunt the premises. The 



22 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



house was immediately forsaken by its occupants, and, though a 
large and beautiful edifice, suffered to go to ruin. 

In Mirzapoor, a Brahmin took his own child, an infant about 
fifteen months old, from the arms of its mother, and, holding it 
by the legs, dashed its head against the ground, that it might be- 
come an evil spirit and torment a certain person by whom he 
imagined himself injured. Another little girl was, by her own 
father, beheaded with an axe. Another was stabbed to the heart, 
with a dagger, and her bleeding body thrown at the door of the 
person upon whom the murderer sought to be revenged. I could 
give the particulars of many other murflers which have been com- 
mitted for similar purposes. 




Here is a group of women engaged in various occupations. 
One is smoking tobacco. Another is spinning cotton. A third 
is preparing the thread for the weavers by winding it on a spool. 
A fourth is preparing the cotton for spinning. A fifth is grinding, 
upon a flat stone, cayenne pepper, garlic, ginger, and turmeric. 
These, when stewed with a cucumber or melon, serve as a season- 
ing for their boiled rice, which, in many parts of India, constitutes 
more than seven eighths of the entire food of the inhabitants. 
The woman with the large brass pot is carrying home water for 
household use. The next is returning from her morning ablution 
in the Ganges, with her hair spread upon her shoulders to dry 



LECTURES ON INDIA 23 

In her left hand are two brass pots, which she has scoured by 
rubbing them with the mud of the river. Children are never 
carried in the arms ; they sit astride on the hip. The woman 
carrying the child is going to market with a bundle of wood 
borne upon the head. 

Perhaps there is no one point in which Christianity has a more 
direct influence upon the state of the community than in respect 
to the character and standing of the female. To a Hindu the 
birth of a daughter is an occasion of sorrow. At the early age 
of twelve or thirteen years, she is required to leave the parental 
roof, and to become the wife of a man whom she has had no 
voice in choosing as her companion. Her duties to him are thus 
prescribed in the Shasters : " When in the presence of her hus- 
band, a woman must keep her eyes upon her master, and be ready 
to receive his commands. When he speaks, she must be quiet, 
and listen to nothing beside. When he calls, she must leave 
every thing else, and attend upon him alone. A woman has no 
other god on earth than her husband. The most excellent of all 
good works she can perform is, to gratify him with the strictest 
obedience. This should be her only devotion. Though he be 
aged, infirm, dissipated, a drunkard, or a debauchee, she must still 
regard him as her god. She must serve him with all her might, 
obeying him in all things, spying no defects in his character, and 
giving him no cause for disquiet. If he laughs, she must also 
laugh ; if he weeps, she must also weep ; if he sings, she must 
be in an ecstasy. She must never eat until her husband is satis- 
fied. If he abstains, she must also fast ; and she must abstain 
from whatever food her husband dislikes." 

On the next page you will see the interior of a Hindu dwelling 
at meal time. The husband, according to custom, is seated upon 
a mat, eating his boiled rice with his fingers, while his wife is 
standing by him ready to obey his commands. She is never 
permitted to eat with her husband, but waits upon him in the 
capacity of a servant, and afterwards partakes of the fragments 
in retirement. 

Schools are not uncommon in India, but there are none for the 
instruction of the female. Her mind is entirely uncultivated, and 
she has no fixed principles to regulate her conduct. She is 
therefore an easy prey to vice, and the devoted slave of supersti- 
tion. When her husband dies, she must either burn herself upon 
his funeral pile, or, if she determines to live, it must be a life of 



24 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 



reproach and servitude. She may never marry again, however 
young she may be. She must cast off all her ornaments, shave 
her head, and either become a servant in the house of her hus- 




band's friends, or adopt a mode of life which will bring disgrace 
not only upon herself, but upon the whole family. Hence it is, 
that death upon the funeral pile is so often preferred to surviv- 
ing widowhood. This cruel custom was, in 1827, prohibited by 
the East India Company in their own dominions ; but in some of 
the independent provinces the practice is still continued. 

A large proportion of the persons who undertake long and haz- 
ardous pilgrimages, and who subject themselves to painful modes 
of self-torture, are females. " At a certain time," says a missionary 
of my acquaintance, " as I was walking in a retired village, my 
attention was arrested by seeing two objects, at some distance 
before me, rolling in the mud. As I approached the spot, I found 
two females, almost exhausted by fatigue. I learnt that they 
had vowed to their goddess to roll, in this manner, from one tem- 
ple to another. They had spent nearly the whole day, and had 
not accomplished one half their journey. But no arguments, 
no remonstrances, on my part, could induce them to relinquish 
their undertaking ; for they feared that, unless they performed 
their vow, the goddess would be angry with them. On leav- 
ing these deluded votaries of superstition," continued he, " with 



LECTURES ON INDIA. 26 

my feelings aroused almost to indignation, I expostulated with a 
leamed Brahmin who stood not far distant, and pointed to the 
miserable objects I had just left. ' 0,' said he, ' this is wor- 
ship exactly suited to the capacity of females. Let them alone 
They are sincere: of course their worship will be accepted.'" 

I might relate many other facts * to show the wretched con- 
dition of women in pagan lands, but these must suffice. The 
respected ladies of this audience will permit me to say, in 
conclusion, every thing in life, in death, and eternity, that can 
inspire you with the love of existence, you derive from the 
gospel. To you, then, in a special manner, is the gospel "glad 
tidings of great joy." 



END OF LECTURE II. 



• See Mr. Wright's "Lecture on the Condition of Women in Pagan and 
Mohammedan Countries." A description of the lecture is given in the following 
testimonials : — 

jFVom Rev. Edward Beecher, D. D., of Boston. 

" I have perused a ' Lecture on the Condition of Women in Pagan and Moham- 
medan Countries, by Caleb Wright,' and take great pleasure in recommending it 
as one of great value. By personal observation in pagan lands, and by extensive 
reading, the author has collected a great number of anecdotes and important facts, 
which cannot iail to be highly interesting to all classes of the community." 

IVom Rev. Edavard N. Kirk, D. D., and Rev. Dakiel Sharp, D. D., of Boston. 

"Mr. Wright has done good service to the cause of humanity in recording the 
results of his observations on the condition of the female sex in Pagan and Mo- 
hammedan countries. We cordially recommmend his lecture on this subject to 
all who desire to know the real condition of women in the various nations of the 
earth." 



INTERESTING INCIDENTS, &c. 



ADVENTURE WITH A SERPENT. 



A CORRESPONDENT of the Madras Herald gives the following ac- 
count of an adventure with a cobra di capello, which occurred to 
a gentleman who was reposing under a tamarind-tree alone, after 
a day of shooting : — 

" I was aroused by the furious baying of my dogs : on turning 
round I beheld a snake, of the cobra di capello species, directing 
its course to a point tiiat would approximate very close upon my 
position. In an instant I was upon my feet. The instant the 
reptile became aware of my presence, in nautical phraseology, it 
boldly brought to, with expanded hood, eyes sparkling, neck 
beautifully arched, the head raised nearly two feet from the 
ground, and oscillating from side to side, in a manner plainly in- 
dicative of a resentful foe. I seized a short bamboo, left by one 
of the bearers, and hurled it at my opponent's head. I was fortu- 
nate enough to hit it beneath the eye. The reptile immediately 
fell from its imposing attitude, and lay apparently lifeless. 
Without a moment's reflection, I seized it a little below the head, 
hauled it beneath the shelter of a tree, and very coolly sat down 
to examine the mouth for the poisoned fangs, of which naturalists 
speak so much. While in the act of forcing the mouth open with 
a stalk, I felt the head sliding through my hand, and, to my ut- 
ter astonishment, became aware that I now had to contend against 
the most deadly of reptiles in its full strength and vigor. Indeed, 
I was in a moment convinced of it ; for as I tightened my hold of 
the throat, its body became wreathed round my neck and arm 
I had raised myself from a sitting posture to one knee ; my right 
arm, to enable me to exert my strength, was extended. I must, 
m such an attitude, have appeared horrified enough to represent 
a deity in the Hindu mythology, such as we so often see rudely 
emblazoned on the portals of their native temples. It now be- 



ADVENTURE WITH A SERPENT. 27 

came a matter of self-defence. To retain my hold, it required 
my utmost strength to prevent the head from escaping, as my 
neck became a purchase for the animal to pull upon. If the 
reader is aware of the universal dread in which the cobra di capel- 
lo is held throughout India, and the almost instant death which 
invariably follows its bite, he will, in some degree, be able to im- 
agine what my feelings were at that moment ; a shudder, a faint 
kind of disgusting sickness, pervaded my whole frame, as I felt the 
cold, clammy fold of the reptile's body tightening round my neck. 
To attempt any delineation of my sensations, would be absurd 
and futile ; let it suffice, they were most horrible. I had now 
almost resolved to resign my hold. Had I done so, this tale 
would never have been written, as no doubt the head would 
have been brought to the extreme circumvolution to itiflict its 
deadly wound. Even in the agony of such a moment, I could 
picture to myself the fierce glowing of the eyes, and the intimi- 
dating expansion of the hood, ere it fastened its venomous and 
fatal hold upon my face or neck. To hold it much longer would 
be impossible. Immediately beneath my grasp there was an in- 
ward working and creeping of the skin, which seemed to be 
assisted by the very firmness with which I held it ; — my hand 
was gloved. Finding, in defiance of all my eftorts, that my 
hand was each instant forced closer to my face, I was anxiously 
considering how to act in this horrible dilemma, when an idea 
struck me that, were it in my power to transfix the mouth with 
some sharp instrument, it would prevent the reptile from using 
its fangs, should it escape my hold of it. My gun lay at my 
feet ; the ramrod appeared the very thing required, which, with 
some difficulty, I succeeded in drawing out, having only one hand 
disengaged. My right arm was now trembling from over-exer- 
tion, my hold becoming less firm, when I happily succeeded in 
passing the rod through the lower jaw up to its centre. It was 
not without considerable hesitation that I suddenly let go my 
hold of the throat, and seized the rod in both hands ; at the same 
time bringing them over my head with a sudden jerk, disengaged 
the fold from my neck, which had latterly become almost tight 
enough to produce strangulation. There was then little difficulty 
in freeing my right arm, and ultimately throwing the reptile from 
me to the earth, where it continued to twist and writhe itself into 
a thousand contortions of rage and agony. To run to a neighbor- 
mg stream to lave my neck, hands, and face in its cooling waters, 
was my first act after despatching my formidable enemy." 



28 A HINDU SONG. 

A Hindu Son^. 

On page 11, of Lecture II., is a description of the dancing girls. 
The following is one of the songs, which, at religious festivals, 
they sing for the amusement of the idols and their worshippers. 
The boy mentioned in the first line is Krishna, the favorite 
divinity, who married sixteen thousand wives. He is believed to 
have been born of human parents, at Brindabun, on the Ganges, 
where he spent his youthful days in playing on the flute, and 
frolicking with the milkmaids. 

" The pipe is heard of Nundh's sweet boy — 
The milkmaids' hearts beat high with joy ; 
To the cool Avoods in crowds they speed ; 
No danger, fear, nor toil, they heed ; 
And, if by chance the youth they spy, 
Away go prudence, modesty. 
They gaze, by his bright beauties burned, 
And soon their pails are overturned ! " 

They then go to Jasooda, (Krishna's mother,) and make the 
following complaint : — 

" Jasooda ! listen to our prayer ; 

Thy son's audacious frolics hear ! 

To Brindabun we bent our way ; 

He seized our arms and bade us stay. 

Lady ! our cheeks with shame were red ; 
. Like modest girls, away we fled. 

In vain we've milked, in vain we've churned, 

For he our pails has overturned ! " 

Jasooda replies, — 

" Go, bold and forward milkmaids, go ! 
No one your wily ways can know ; 
Often in laughing groups you're seen 
Bending your steps to coverts green ; 
There in the cool retreats you rove. 
And pass the hours in mirth and love ; 
Then tell me, from your pranks returned, 
Forsooth, your pails are overturned ! " 



Extract from one of the Plays performed at Religions 

Festivals. 

KRISHNA. 

Again, my fair one ! — hast thou purchased me ? 

MILKMAID. 

Think'st thou uncalled I boldly come ? Ah, see ! 

The gathering clouds, dear youtli, invite to love. 



CURIOUS DOCUMENTS. 39 

KRISHNA. 

How could a frame so soft such dangers brave ? 
While e'en thy pretty self was lost in night 
How see thy way ? 

MILKMAID. 

The lightning gleamed so bright 

KRISHNA. 

O'er broken roads, through mire and tangling thorn — 
Thy tender limbs must ache, thy feet be torn. 

MILKMAID. 

Steps light and firm will weariest way o'ercome. 

KRISHNA. 

Yet dark 's the night, and thou wert all alone. 

MILKMAID. 

No, my soul's lord ! for Love was with me still, 
Pointed my path and warded every ill. 



From the Oriental Christian Spectator of July, 1838. 

One of the Speculations of the Ilonorahle £ast India 

Company. 

" An image, called Mahadeo, stands in a village situated on 
the banks of the Neeva, to which pilgrims, on their way to a 
shrine of greater celebrity, generally present such trifling offerings 
as dates, betel-nuts, cowries, or a handful of grain. The time for 
making these off'erings lasts nine days. The proceeds are divided 
between the government and the officers of the village. Govern- 
ment annually disposes, by public auction, of the right to collect its 
share of the ofl^erings. In 1836, they received six rupees * and 
four annas, and in 1835, four rupees and five annas," 

Extract of a ITIeniorial to the East India Company. 

" The identification of the government with the idolatry of the 
country is so complete, that the endowments of the temples are 
taken under the fiscal management of the collector of revenue 
in each district. Public officers are r^etaincd in several provinces; 
whose sole and especial duty it is to see that all the services to the 
idols in the district are duly performed, the diff'erent attendants at 
their posts, the vessels, temples, t &-c., &c. kept in repair, and to 

* A rupee is about fifty cents, and an anna is a sixteenth of a rupee. 

t Twenty thousand dollars were expended, by the English, in repairing the wall 
of a temple at Seringham, and the work was superintended by a European en- 
gineer in the company's service. 



30 CURIOUS DOCUMENTS. AN APPROACHING CRISIS. 

report to the European officer, the collector at the head of the 
province. They take no step without reference to that officer, 
and, in all cases, resort to him for orders. In the large temples a 
special officer is employed, whose duty it is to superintend the 
particular temple." 

Curious official Documents of the East India Company. 

" To the acting principal collector at Coimbatoor. From the 
Thasildar Palachy. 

" At the temple of Kalandai, Penal, employed as a dancing 
girl, [lewd woman of the temple.] died ; and, on the seventh of 
last September, I sent to Hoozoor, for permission to appoint her 
daughter as a dancing girl. Having now appointed her, I send 
her to the presence, [collector,] and wait for the collector's orders 
as to taking the customary securities, dec, from her." 

Translation of asa Onlcr issued toy tlie Eng-lisli Magistrate 
of Canara, in 1§33, directing special Ceremonies for 
Rain to be performed in certain Temples of that Dis- 
trict. 

'■'1. Communications have been received from the revenue 
officers of some districts, stating that, from deficiency of rain, the 
cultivation is hindered, and requesting permission to perform pur- 
junyum, [ceremonies in the temples for rain.] Upon looking upon 
the rain reports, it appears that it is so. It is therefore ordered, for 
the protection of the ryots, [farmers,] that they must go to the 
temples of their villages with cocoa-nuts, cocoa-nut water, &e., 
and with poojah [worship to the idol] must ofier up their prayers. 
In the temples for the maintenance of which there is an allow- 
ance from government, you must order the officiating priest to 
perform poojah properly with prayers. 

" 2. If the ryots and respectable people say that purjunyum is 
required, if it appear to you that the distress is really true, and if 
it appears necessary that purjunyum should be performed, you are 
to take thirty-five rupees from the amount of collections, and give 
them to the Kundre Devanah Devasthan, and, having performed 
purjunyum properly, you are to report to me the coming of rain." 

An approaching Crisis. 

Bishop Wilson, of Calcutta, has lately expressed the following 
opinion as to the present aspect of Hinduism : — 

'•' Unquestionably a crisis seems approaching, in India, with 



A brahmin's views of CHRISTIANITY. ANOTHER. 31 

rapid strides. Education has been going on for fifty years ; all 
offices, up to a certain class, are thrown open to Hindu talent and 
character ; the native mind is bursting out with knowledge ; 
Commerce is opening her riches ; Medicine is following the steps 
of Western science ; railroads are about to accelerate internal com- 
munication ; the present governor-general is full of enlightened 
zeal for native improvement ; the invention and application of 
steam-vessels is rendering Calcutta a suburb, as it were, of 
London. 

" In such a moment, Christianity must sanctify the process, or 
inordinate luxury and selfishness will blight the gifts of God. 
Christianity must ' stand upon the watch, and set herself upon 
the tower,' to seize every favorable opportunity as it arises; for 
at any moment a sudden downfall of Eastern idolatry and supersti- 
tion may take place, and then, if we are ready to enter in, India 
may quickly be the Lord's." 

A Braliniin's Views of Cliristianity. 

At a village in Southern India belonging to a respectable 
Brahmin, a small number of families applied to a catechist for in- 
struction. The Brahmin, hearing of it, assembled the whole of 
the villagers, and addressed them as follows : '' I hear that 
some of you have determined to learn the Christian Vedas. Now 
I do not want any divisions or quarrels in my village. There 
shall not be two parties here. Therefore, all of you remain in 
your old religion, or else all of you in a body join the new. If 
you like to embrace Christianity, do so : I will make no opposi- 
tion. You may turn your temple into a prayer-house, if you 
like : only, all be of the same mind." All the inhabitants of the 
village, nearly two hundred in number, decided in favor of 
Christianity ; placed themselves under instruction ; demolished 
their idols, valued at two hundred rupees; and delivered up their 
devil temple to become a temple of the living God." 

Another. 

"A wealthy Brahmin in Benares gave up his son into the hands 
of one of the missionaries with these words: 'I feel convinced, 
sir, after reading your Holy Shasters, that they contain the true 
religion. I have not the power to come up to the purity of its 
precepts; but here is my son — take him as your child, feed him 
at your table, and bring him up a Christian.' 







A Parsee Woman of Bombay, of high rank, in full Dress. 



LECTURE 

ON THE 

CONDITION OF WOMEN 



IN 



PAGM AND MOHAMMEDAN COUNTRIES. 




BY CALEB WRIGHT. 

THE AUTHOR HAS TRAVELLED MORE THAN FORTY THOUSAND MILES, FOK 

THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF COLLECTING INFORMATION RESPECTING 

THE VARIOUS RACES OF PEOPLE WHOSE PECULIAR MANNERS, 

HABITS, AND SUPERSTITIONS HE DESCRIBES. 



BOSTON: 
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 



ISf^x:^ 




A Hindu Woman of Bengal of high rank, in full Dress. 




A Mohammedan Woman of Bengal, of high rank, in full Dress 




Women of Calcutta. 




A Hindu Woman of the Brahmin rnste. She has prepared a dinner of rice, placed it 
upon a Plantain kaf, and is cairyivg it to her husband. See jmge 19. 




The dead child was drawn to the place of burial by a favorite dog harnessed 
into a sled. The dog was then shot, and; together with the child, a kettle of food, 
and a cup of the mother's milk, was deposited in the grave. The mother holds 
in her arms a roll ornameHted with beads and feathers. She presents it with 
food, and caresses it as she did her little departed one, who, accompanied by 
the dog, is supposed to be on its way to the spirit land. 




A Chinese House. 




A Hindu School. 
« While through the Eastern world schools are maintained for the instruction 
of boys, and they are sufficiently taught to qualify them for the common business 
of life, girls are left to utter ignorance of letters, and systematically refused all in- 
tellectual culture, as useless to themselves and injurious to society." (See p. 12.) 



LECTURE. 



Woman, by Heaven's appointment, is man's help-meet. For 
this was she created, and for this furnished with her pecuUar 
endowments. " It is not good that man should be alone." Soli- 
tude is ill adapted to the development either of his physical 
energies, or of his intellectual and moral powers. His nature 
demands companionship ; without it, the world is a blank, and 
human existence a cheerless night. 

Woman, in her original state, (to use the language of another,) 
" was all that is lovely in form, all that is graceful in manner, all 
that is exalted in mind, all that is pure in thought, all that is 
delicate in sentiment, all that is enchanting in conversation." She 
was God's most finished workmanship. Has she lost her original 
purity and loveliness? But man has fallen too; and relatively 
they are to each other still what they were before they took and 
ate of the forbidden fruit. It is now, as ever. Heaven's will that 
woman receive all "due benevolence" from man, — that he 
regard her as his equal, and entitled to his warmest love : that 
he throw his arm around her for protection, and combine 
with the gentlest care the most respectful deference to her honor 
and her happiness. "A man shall leave his father and his mother 
and cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh." "Hus- 
bands, love your wives," is God's command and nature's law, 
for they are bone of each other's bone and flesh of each other's 
flesh. Such is the genius of Christianity. And the result of 
obedience to this eternal law of God and nature, is the lofty ele- 
vation of the female character, the thorough cultivation of her 
mind, the rich endowment of her heart, and the augmented 
strength of all her capabilities of usefulness and enjoyment; 
while the result of disobedience is fraught with all that is 
degrading to intellect, vitiating to social principle, corrupting to 
moral habits, and hostile to every upward movement of the 
immortal powers. 

And what is the spirit of heathenism, and of false religion in 
its varied forms, let the impartial pen of history tell. Times, 



12 CONDITION OF WOMEN IN 

ancient and modern, — witnesses, Pagan, Mahometan, and Chris- 
tian, may be indiscriminately cited on this point. Their testi- 
mony is one, — truthful, melancholy, and decisive. 

A daughter is born. 'T is a grievous calamity. The Hindoo 
father becomes dejected, and his neighbors gather around him to 
mingle their grief with his. The Chinese parent thus afflicted 
denominates the little innocent a woe, a hated thing. Even 
tlie Moorish mother repines, and though she had rejoiced greatly 
at the birth of her son, and blackened her face forty days in 
(oken of her joy, yet when a daughter comes into the world, she 
ill conceals her mortification, by blackening half her face, for 
lialf the period only. 

It was not long since, that the lady of a missionary in the East, 
having become the mother of a lovely daughter, a native friend 
of the husband called on him the following day with a counte- 
nance unusually sad. The missionary kindly inquired the cause 
of his sadness. His friend, with most lugubrious face, replied, "I 
have heard that your new-born infant is a daughter, and I have 
come to condole with you, on your hard fate." So little valued 
is the life of female infants, within the domains of Paganism, that 
great numbers are put to death, solely to avoid the trouble and 
expense of feeding and clothing them. 

The singular custom formerly prevailed in the northern part 
of Hindoostan, whenev^er a female child was born, of carrying 
her to the market-place, and there, holding up the child in one 
hand, and a knife in the other, proclaiming, that if any person 
wanted to rear her for a wife, they might then take her ; if none 
appeared to accept of her, she was immediately destroyed. The 
consequence of this course, was, that the men of the tribe became 
much more numerous than the women; and hence arose the 
custom of appropriating several husbands to one wife, — a custom 
that still prevails in some of the southern as well as the northern 
tribes of Hindoostan. Among the Rajpoot tribes in the north-west 
part of that country nearly all the female children are put to death 
immediately after birth ; consequently the men are obliged to pro- 
cure their wives from other tribes. And among some, at least, 
of the Indian tribes of our own land, the case is no better. Said 
a Chippewa Indian, (in a recent address before a missionary 
society in London,) — "When a boy is born in the tribe it is a 
day of rejoicing, because it is considered that he will make a 
fine warrior ; but v/hen a female is born, it is a time of sorrow, 
and it is said, ' a good-for-nothing girl is born.' The poor mother, 
knowing that the news is not eood, kisses the poor child, and 



PAGAN AND MAHOMKTAN COUNTUItS. 13 

says, ' Father does not love you, but I do ;' and then, taking the 
infant by the legs, dashes out its brains, exclaiming, ' Would lo 
God, my mother had done so with me when I was born, — I should 
not then have been such a slave.' On one occasion the helpless 
babe was rescued from its mother, by her sisters, who said, ' It is 
better that your child should be a slave than to kill it in this 
way.' That babe is now grown up ; when fourteen years of age. 
she was converted, and has now become a Sabbath school teacher, 
ond a useful member of society." 

The education of heathen females is entirely NEGLECTEn, 

While, throughout the Eastern world, schools are maintained for 
the instruction of boys, and they are sufficiently taught to qualify 
them for the common business of life, girls are left to utter igno- 
rance of letters, and systematically refused all intellectual culture, 
as useless to themselves and injurious to society. To a Europe:);! 
gentleman, (who endeavored to persuade the natives of a Hin- 
doo village that the education of their females in reading, writing, 
and arithmetic, would be of advantage to their husbands, and 
would render them their equals and companions, as well as 
helpers,) it v/as replied, — " All this, Sahib, may be very true with 
your people, but it will never do for us. It would be impossible 
for Hindoos to keep their wives in subjection, if they were 
educated." Shrewd reasoning this ! — based on the preposterous 
assumption, that man is created to be a master, and woman a 
slave. In vain were these villagers assured that women of the 
most refined education and extensive knowledge are the most 
affectionate and faithful wives in the world, because governed by 
reason, judgment, and common sense, they regard the interest 
of their husbands as their own, and yield a systematic and cheer- 
ful obedience in those things in which the husband's will ought to 
have the preference, while, at the same time, he might enjoy the 
advantages of her better judgment in matters which pertain to 
her own sphere. Their only reply to such arguments is, " Our 
women are not like yours, — if educated they would be refractory, 
and would no longer carry burdens, and collect cow's ordure for 
fuel." On grounds hke these, is the whole mass of female mind 
throughout Hindoostan, China, Burmah, Persia, Turkey, &c., 
doomed to perpetual darkness and gloom, instead of sharing the 
light of science, and rejoicing in the radiance of the sun of 
righteousness. 

They are not at their own disposal in marriage. Of all the 
relationships of life, this is the basis. Of all affinities, it is the 
closest and most tender. Of earthly bliss, it is the purest foun- 



14 CONDITION OF WOMEN IN 

tain, — the brightest crown, — the loveUest image of heaven's blest 
communion. 

" True bliss (if man may reach it) is composed 
Of hearts in union mutually disclosed ; 
And farewell else, all hope of pure delight." 

"In marriage," (says Jeremy Taylor,) "kindness is spread 
abroad, and love is united, and made firm as a centre ; it is the 
nursery of heaven, — it fills up the number of the elect. It is the 
mother of the world, and preserves the kingdoms, and fills the 
cities, and the churches, and heaven itself. Like the useful bee, 
it builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower, and 
labors, and unites into societies and republics, and sends out 
colonies, and feeds the world with delicacies, and keeps order, 
and promotes the interest of mankind, and is that state of good 
things, to which God has designed the present constitution of 
the world." 

But all this supposes confidence and esteem, growing out of 
acquaintance between the parties, — affection, inspiring a mutual 
desire to please, and the immerging of individual interests in the 
common stock of domestic enjoyments. And of this. Paganism 
knows nothing. It holds females as articles of merchandise, 
to be disposed of to those who will pay for them the highest 
price. Girls of six or eight years are bought and sold by their 
fathers as calves of the stall, to be taken, at twelve or fourteen, 
(whether willing or unwilling,) from the home of their childiiood, 
and put into the hands of the man for whom they were pur- 
chased. 

In Hindoostan, females, who remain unmarried till they are 
fifteen or sixteen years of age, (however correct in their con- 
duct,) are regarded as infamous, and (like widows) are never 
sought for in marriage ; and widowers (even if sixty or seventy 
years old) invariably marry girls of ten or txvelve. Among the 
poorer classes in China, when a man dies, his relatives (to regain 
the money originally paid for his bride) are allowed to sell his 
widow to become the wife of another man. The arrangement is 
made without her knowledge, and (regardless of her wishes) she 
is forced into a palenkeen, and carried to the house of her pur- 
chaser. The price of a bride varies much in difierent countries. 
In some parts of Africa ten or fifteen bullocks are paid as an 
equivalent, while a handsome red-haired Circassian or Georgian 
girl cannot be bought for less than six or seven thousand piasters. 
In the kingdom of Dahomey, all unmarried women are held as 
the property of the king. Once a year they assemble at the 



PAGAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 15 

palace, when he selects the handsomest for himself, and sells the 
remainder to his subjects. The purcliaser is allowed no choice, 
but receives the wife selected for him by the king. But the whole 
story of man's regard for woman in unevangelized lands, is told 
in the simple language of the Modean of Siberia, who, at the 
close of the marriage ceremony, places the bride on a mat, and 
conveys her to the bridegroom, saying, "There, wolf, take thy 
lamb." 

It is not in all heathen countries, however, that wives are 
obtained by money or its equivalent. In some tribes more roman- 
tic customs prevail. The New Hollander fixes his eye upon 
some female of a tribe at enmity with his own. He steals upon 
her at some moment when no protector is near, and deals out 
blows with his club, upon her head, neck, back, indeed every 
part of her body, till she becomes insensible ; and then drags her 
by one of her arms, (the blood streaming from her wounds,) over 
rocks, hills, stones and logs, with all the violence and ferocity 
of a savage, till he reaches his tribe. The scene that follows, 
admits not of description. Suflice it to say, the poor violated 
woman becomes the wife of her ravisher, — is admitted to his 
tribe, — and (notwithstanding the singularity of the courtship) is 
contented with her lot, and rarely leaves her husband and her 
home. 

That genuine love may exist, even among these rude barba- 
rians, and sometimes be exhibited in the purest forms, admits not 
of doubt. Mr. Barrington (who had long resided in Parametta) 
mentions an instance that fell under his own observation, pleas- 
antly illustrating this fact. "A brother of twenty-three, and two 
sisters of twenty and fourteen respectively, dwelt together affec- 
tionately in a cave near the city. On returning one day from 
hunting the kangaroo, just as the darkness of night mantled the 
heavens, and while the forked lightning played vividly around 
him, at the mouth of the cave, his eye caught the form of his 
younger sister, bleeding on the ground. Troubled before at the 
warring of the elements, his soul was now in agony. He 
endeavored to raise her up, but she was senseless. At length, 
however, his efforts were successful, and, with returning anima- 
tion, she exclaimed, ' Dear brother ! our sister is torn from us, — 
a wretch came to the cave, beat her cruelly with his club, and 
caught up one arm to drag her away, — I laid hold of the other 
to prevent him, but the moment he saw it, with a single blow, 
he knocked me to the ground, where you have now found me.' 
The niglu was passed in the anguish of grief and amid harrow- 



16 COXDITION OF \VO:,TK\ IN 

ing purposes of revenge. Morning came. Together they sought 
the tribe of the offender. A httle before reaching it, they met 
the sister of the very man who had committed the outrage, gath- 
ering sticks for a fire. A fine opportunity was thus presented 
for revenge. The brother (bidding his sister to hide herself) 
flew upon the young woman, with club in hand, and with all 
!he ferocity of a savage in his heart. The victim trembled ; but 
knowing his power, she stood firmly, and looked him in the eye. 
when, (like the lion of the forest, meeting the eye of intelligent 
man,) he paused, — he gazed, — enchantment was on him : she saw 
it, — dropped on her knees and implored his compassion. Re- 
venge softened into love ; throwing down his club, he clasped 
her in his arms, and vowed eternal constancy. This nobleness 
won her heart. He called his sister, who thirsted still for the 
stranger's blood, and said to her, ' She is now my wife.' " 

" Nor force nor interest joined unwilling hands, 
But love consenting tied the blissful bands." 

All three now love each other tenderly, and (under the instruc- 
tion of a Christian friend) read the oracles of God, and cherish 
the spirit that breathes from the bosom of Jesus. 

Polygamy prevents the enjoyment of the husband's affection. 
Conjugal love may be disturbed, — or it may be diminished, — or it 
may be maddened into phrensy, — or it may be annihilated, — but 
it cannot be divided. Abraham may become the husband of 
Hagar, but his heart is with Sarah. Jacob may be the protector 
of Leah, but he loves Rachel. Elkanah may deal kindly with 
Peninnah, but his affections are with Hannah. Good men 
these, and faithful to their marriage-vows, though borne away 
into the transgression of the original law of Heaven, by the strong 
current of the popular sentiment of the age in which they lived. 
Then, though Heaven interfered not to prevent the practice, it 
never sanctioned it by law ; and if it were not condemned by 
statutes and penalties, it was powerfully rebuked by its effects 
and consequences. Never did it fail, in the most auspicious cir- 
cumstances for its indulgence, to produce domestic discord and 
wretchedness. Jealousy, bitterness, and strife, are its inva- 
riable attendants, even when associated with faith as strong as 
that of the patriarchs, and piety as ardent as that of the sweet 
singer of Israel. Its inconsistency with the spirit of the gospel 
has expelled the practice from eve y Christian land ; and its 
incongruity with reason and expediency, has stamped it with 
infamy. But it still prevails among the higher classes, in nearly 
every part of the unevangelized world. 



PAGAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 17 

Besides four queens, the king of Birmah has thirty wives, and 
five hundred other women at his disposal. The emperor of Tur- 
key swells his harem, usually, with more than a thousand 
wives, — the sultan Achmet I. is said to have had three thousand. 
The king of Ashantee has three thousand three hundred and 
thirty-three, — a mystical number, on the integrity of which the 
prosperity of his kingdom is supposed to depend. And the king 
of Yarriba boasted to Capt. Clapperton, that his wives, linked 
hand in hand, would reach entirely across his kingdom. 

Not only kings, but nobles, and men of wealth and station, and 
indeed men of all classes, who have the ability to sustain a 
plurality of wives, are eager to possess them, — not as objects of 
affection, but as honorable appendages to their establishments, or 
as ministering to their pride and sensuality. Love is not known 

" where pleasure is adored, 



That ruling goddess, with a zoneless waist 
And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm 
Of novelty." 

but its place is supplied by envy, and rancor, and hate, bursting 
forth, often, in words of wrath and deeds of cruelty, and the 
wanton murder of the innocent. Says Lady Montague, during 
her residence in Constantinople, " The body of a young woman 
of surpassing beauty was found one morning near my house. 
She had received two wounds, one in her side, and the other in 
her breast, and was not quite cold. Many came to admire her 
beauty ; but no one could tell who she was, — no woman's face 
being known out of her family. She was buried privately, and 
little inquiry made for the wretch who had imbrued his hands in 
her blood." The Pacha of Acre, in Palestine, a few years since, 
put to death seven of his wives, at one time, with his own hands. 
And even where cruelties like these are not perpetrated, the wife 
is kept a prisoner m the house of her lord, and her face is never 
seen beyond it. She is thus entirely in the irresponsible power 
of her husband, nor is one earthly ear but his, open to the tale 
of her wrongs, how terrible soever they may be. That she 
endures such wrongs, is no more to be questioned than the exist- 
ence of caprice in man's proud heart, or of contempt for the 
whole sex, which he regards as infinitely inferior to his own. 

The Pagan or Mahometan wife is liable to divorce, and con- 
sequent poverty and shame, at any moment when her husband 
wills it. For one cause, and only one, Christianity permits the 
disruption of the conjugal tie. And it is this inviolability of the 



18 CONDITION OF WOMEN IN 

relation that operates so kindly in the restraint of unseemly pas- 
sions, and in perpetuating 

" Domestic happiness, the only bliss *' 

Of Paradise that has survived the fall." 

But false religions allow to man unbounded license. Might and 
right, in their vocabulary, are but synonymous terms ; and woman 
(dishonored without her own fault) is, at her husband's pleas- 
ure, turned an outcast from her home. Let the Arab's wife be 
taken sick, and forthwith she is returned to her parents with the 
message, " I paid for a healthy woman, and cannot afford the 
support of a sickly one." Let the Siberian become dissatisfied 
with his wife, for any cause, and he has but to tear her cap 
from her head, and the marriage contract is dissolved. Let the 
husband of Sumatra but break a bamboo, in the presence of his 
wife and their relatives, and the divorce is effected. Or, let the 
Greenlander leave his home in apparent anger, and not return 
for a few days ; the wife understands his meaning, picks up her 
clothes, and returns to her friends. Or let the South Sea Islandei 
but speak the word, and the relation is dissolved, though no dis- 
like of the wife to the husband can produce a separation without 
his consent. But a divorce is ruin to the female, — it dooms her 
irrevocably to scorn and universal contempt, and (with scarcely 
less certainty) to a life of vice and infamy. 

But the degradation of woman under the fell influence of false 
religions is not yet fully seen. She is her husband's slave, and 
with unquestioning servility, must yield to his behest, on penalty 
of torture, separation, or death. Nor is this a mere accident of 
her condition. The religion of her country decrees it, — the 
sacred books demand it. The Koran, and the Hindoo Shasters, 
whose doctrines sway the mind, and determine the practice, of 
more than two hundred millions of the human family, make 
woman infinitely man's mferior, — the mere pander to his passions, 
— the abject drudge, owing him unconditional submission. Says 
the Shaster of the Hindoo, — " The supreme duty of a wife, is, to 
obey the mandate of her husband. Let the wife who wishes to 
perform sacred ablution, wash the feet of her lord, and drink the 
water, for the husband is to the wife greater than Vishnoo. If 
a man goes on a journey his wife shall not divert herself by play, 
nor shall see any public show, nor shall laugh, nor shall dress 
herself in jewels and fine clothes, nor shall see dancing, nor hear 
music, nor shall sit at the window, nor shall ride out, nor shall 
behold anything choice and rare, but shall fasten well the house 
door, and remain private, and shall not eat any dainty food, and 



PAGAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 19 

shall not blacken her eyes with powder, and shall not view her 
face in a mirror, — she shall never exercise herself in any such 
agreeable employment during the absence of her husband." 
Again, " A woman shall never go out of the house without the 
consent of her husband, and shall act according to the orders of 
her husband, and shall not eat until she has served him," — 
though, "if it be physic, she may take it before he eat." 

Not only in Hindoostan, but in almost every unevangelized 
country, the wife is obliged to stand and wait upon her husband 
while he eats, and to be content with such food as is left after 
his wants are satisfied. In the Society Islands, while Paganism 
reigned, women were not only thus compelled to wait upon their 
husband's table, but were not allowed, on pain of death, to eat 
at all of those kinds of food which were most highly esteemed. 
The cocoa-nut, the plantain, the fowl, the turtle, the swine, the 
shark, and various kinds of fish, were tabued to them. Nor 
were they allowed to eat in the same house with the men, nor to 
cook their food at the same fire, nor to put it into the same ves- 
sels. The transgression of these rules involved immediate 
drownmg or strangulation. " The females of Raratonga," (says 
the Rev. Mr. Williams,) " were denied those kinds of food 
reserved for the men and the gods, — compelled to eat their scanty 
meals by themselves, and forbidden to dwell under the same roof 
with their tyrannical masters." 

Till Riho Riho became ruler of the Sandwich Islands, similar 
customs prevailed there. About the time when he caused the 
idols to be destroyed, a dinner party was made, to which the prin- 
cipal chiefs and other persons of distinction were invited. When 
the company were seated around the table spread in an open 
bower, the king took his seat between two of his queens, — pre- 
sented them with some of the forbidden food, and ate from the 
same dish with them. The whole company were astonished at 
such an innovation on ancient usages ; so great, indeed, was the 
excitement produced, that it threatened a revolution in the gov- 
ernment. The authority of the monarch, however, sustained by 
the incipient influences of Christianity, prevailed. 

In 1787, the emperor of China issued the following decree: 
"All persons of the female sex, of whatever quality or condition, 
are forbidden, upon any pretext whatever, to enter a temple or 
quit their houses, except in case's of absolute necessity. Fathers, 
husbands, brothers, sons or relatives, are commanded to keep 
them at home, upon pain of being themselves severely pun- 
ished. After this, any woman who shall enter a temple shall be 



20 CONDITION OF WOMEN" IN 

apprehended and imprisoned, till some one shall appear to claim 
her, and to undergo the punishment due to his negligence," — 
thus cutting off at a stroke the whole female population of the 
empire from all the rites of religion, and all the pleasures of social 
intercourse. 

In some parts of Siberia the marriage ceremony is no sooner 
performed, than the wife pulls off her husband's boots, in token of 
submission. In other parts of the same country, the morning 
after a wedding, a man representing the father of the bride, 
delivers to the husband a whip, which, whenever the wife 
oifends, is to be used freely. In the interior of Java the bride 
washes the bridegroom's feet in token of subjection. In Bambouk, 
Africa, she takes off her sandals, kneels before the bridegroom, 
pours water upon his feet, and wipes them with her mantle. In 
Madagascar, when a husband returns from war, his wife gives 
him the customary salutation of passing her tongue over his feet 
most respectfully. In New Holland, the slightest offence given 
to the husband brings down the club upon the wife, which never 
fails to draw forth a stream of blood and often fractures the 
skull. Among the Mandingoes, the terrible personage called 
Mumbo Jumbo, is called forth to frighten the refractory wife into 
submission. This demon form, assumed either by the husband 
himself or some one instructed by him, gives notice of his 
approach from the neighboring woods, n'ear sunset, by the most 
frightful yells. At dark the men go out to meet him. He has a 
rod in his hand, a hideous mask on his head, and is fantastically 
decorated with the bark of trees. He is conducted to the village, 
where all the married women are assembled. The ceremonies 
commence. Songs and dances continue till a late hour. Mumbo 
.lumbo himself sings a song peculiar to the occasion. Then the 
women are required to arrange themselves in a circle. After a 
long pause and profound silence, Mumbo points out those that 
liave been disobedient to their husbands, or otherwise have 
behaved improperly, and they are immediately seized, stripped, 
tied to a post, and severely beaten with Mumbo's rod, amid the 
shouts and deridings of the whole assembly. 

And to such humiliation of woman, are boys, in some instan- 
ces at least, systematically trained. The Hottentot mother, 
who has brought up her boy with tenderness till he has reached 
the period when custom demands iiis initiation by certain cere- 
monies into the society of men, is the first to feel the weight of 
his arm on his return home from the scene of his transition ; for, 
to show that he is now a man -and has the spirit of a man, he 



..orAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 21 

beats her soundly ; nor does censure follow the barbarous act, but 
he is applauded for his contempt of the society and authority of 
woman. For aught I know, the mother herself applauds it, — but 
how deep her degradation, when prepared to submit to insult like 
this on maternal dignity and honor ! How unlike is the spirit of 
Christianity, prompting the son, in the perfection of his under- 
standing, in the plenitude of his power, and amid the self-gratu- 
lations of his independence, to submit to the mild reason of his 
mother, — to acknowledge her unassuming sway, and admit that 
though independent of all things else, he cannot do without the 
smiles of maternal approbation, the admonitions of maternal soli- 
citude, and the reproofs of maternal tenderness and integrity. 

Woman, in unevangelized lands, is forced to perform the most 
perilous and menial services of the state and the family. The 
three thousand wives of the king of Dahomey are enrolled in the 
army, formed into regiments, armed with all the accoutrements 
of war, and a part of them serve as the king's body-guard. 
These numerous queens, and the other thousands belonging to 
the kings of Ashantee and Yarriba, are but servants, maintained 
for ostentation, — to display the wealth and power of their royal 
masters ; and when not engaged in fighting the battles or guard- 
ing the persons of their lords, they are doomed to labor in the 
fields and submit to all the drudgery that pertains to the wife of 
the meanest subject of the realm. Nor is this all. At the death 
of an African king, his wives are slaughtered by scores and by 
hundreds, from an idea that their attendance will be needed in 
another world. 

Go with me to Van Dieman's Land; and see the weaker sex 
charged with the whole burden of supporting their families, — 
husbands, children and all. Is the rough soil to be cultivated ? 
In their hands are the implements of labor. Is the sea to be 
searched for the sea-carp or the lobster? They are found 
plunging from the projecting rocks into the briny flood, remain- 
ing on the rocky bottom, beneath the waves, twice as long (says 
a naval officer) as the most expert of our divers, — filling their 
baskets, — returning ashore, — drying themselves a few minutes by 
the fire, and warming their chilled limbs, and then resuming 
their perilous toils, while their husbands, through the whole, are 
seated comfortably around the fire, feasting on the choicest of 
the fish, and the most delicate of the broiled fern-roots. 

Nor need I carry you to the other side of the globe, to witness 
the unseemly toils and bitter sufferings of benighted woman. Our 
own continent supplies us practical illustrations without end. 



S2 CONDITION OF WOMEN IN 

Let a fact or two suffice. Father Joseph (a missionary on the 
banks of the Oronoco) ventured to reprove an Indian female, for 
destroying her infant daughter. She rephed, " O that my 
mother had thus prevented the manifold sufferings I have 
endured ! Consider, father, our deplorable condition. Our hus- 
bands go out to hunt ; we are dragged along with one infant at 
the breast and another in a basket. Though tired with long 
walking, we are not allowed to sleep when we return, but must 
labor the whole night in grinding maize to make chica for them 
They get drunk and beat us ; they drag us by the hair of the 
head and tread us under foot. And after such a slavery of twenty 
years, what have we to comfort us ? A young wife is brought 
home and permitted to abuse us and our children. What kind- 
ness can we show our daughters, equal to putting them to death? 
Would to God my mother had put me under ground the moment 
I was born ! " 

One case more only for the sake of contrast. " Soon after my 
acquaintance with these Indians," (says a missionary to the 
Choctaws,) " I one day saw a chief travelling on horseback, 
quite at his ease, followed by his poor wife, who was not only on 
foot, but carried his infant child, his rifle, and a quantity of pro- 
visions in a large basket at her back, supported by a strap drawn 
across her forehead. At a subsequent season, I met the same 
family again on their travels ; the chief was now on foot, laden 
with his own arms, and he had kindly placed his wife on the 
saddle. The child, too, now much larger than before, was 
sweetly sleeping in the arms of its father, who himself seemed 
cheerful and happy amid the fatigues of the way." The 
language of the poet to his wife he practically adopted as 
his own : 

" On all her days let health and peace attend, 
May she ne'er want nor lose a friend ; 
May some new pleasure every hour employ, 
But let her husband be her highest joy." 

And what think you was the cause of this wonderful trans- 
formation? The Choctaw Chief had become a follower of 
Christ. 

But the widowhood of the Pagan wife and mother is, if pos- 
sible, more wretched than her married life. As if Satan could 
not bear that the daughters of the first victim of his seduction 
should find peace in any condition, he first torments them as 
daughters in the house of their fathers, then as wives in the 
dwellings of their husbands, and then as widows, cast out from 



PAGAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 23 

every charity of human hfe. Under the dark covert of Pagan 
superstition and Mahometan delusion, unopposed by the sword 
of the Spirit, he accompHshes with ease his fiendish purposes, 
and adds the wormwood and gall of universal malice and con- 
tempt to all the bitterness of the dregs that had filled her cup of 
woe, from the cradle to the death of her husband. Formerly, 
the Caffre widow, on the decease of her husband, whatever 
was the season of the year, and whatever her condition, was 
compelled to fly to the forest, and houseless, hungry, and alone, 
mourn her loss day after day. During her absence her dwelling 
was plundered by her relatives of everything valuable, set on 
fire, and consumed, and the only dowry allotted her from her 
husband's property was a new garment, made from the hide of 
one of his oxen. On returning from the wildernesss, she built a 
new hut with her own hands, and subsisted on the avails of her 
own labor. Missionary enterprise has succeeded in abolishing 
this cruel custom, and Mr. Shaw, the missionary who was instru- 
mental in accomplishing it, received the name of Umkinets Um- 
fazie, (the woman's shield,) by which he is now generally known 
in Caftraria. In Greenland, when the husband dies, the widow, 
if unprotected by friends, is usually robbed of a considerable por- 
tion of her property by those who come to sympathize with her 
by an affected condolence, and can obtain no redress. If aged 
and infirm, she is not unfrequently buried alive by her own 
children. 

As the legitimate consequences of their servile and wretched 
condition, females of every unevangelized land are devoid of 
those sentiments of delicacy, and that refined taste and acute dis- 
crimination between the lovely and the disgusting in manners 
and customs, which distinguish the sex in lands enlightened by 
the gospel. Before Christianity commenced its reign in the Soci- 
ety Islands, wrestling was a favorite amusement of females, and 
one in which those of the highest rank engaged, not only with 
each other, but also with the men, in the presence of thousands 
of spectators of both sexes. Immediately after marriage, every 
female provided herself with an instrument set with rows of 
shark's teeth, with which, on the death of any of the family, she 
fearfully cut and lacerated herself, beating the head, temples, 
cheeks, and breast, till blood flowed profusely, while she uttered 
the most deafening and agonizing cries. Filthy in their persons, 
indecent in their apparel, fantastic in their ornaments, and famil- 
iar beyond endurance in their approaches to the other sex, their 
character stands forth an enduring but sad monument of that 



24 CONDITION OF WOMEN IN 

intellectual and moral degradation which Paganism and Mahom- 
etanism have spread far and wide. Here their bodies are rubbed 
with bear's grease, and there with fish oil, or some offensive 
compound of vegetable and animal matter. The sheep-skin, or 
the bullock's hide, — the tattered handkerchief, or the entrails of 
slain beasts, serve for partial protection from the frosts of winter, 
or the burning summer's sun; and scarcely answering the purpose 
of fig-leaves in the fallen first pair, are not unfrequently laid 
aside as needless incumbrances, while the whole person is 
exposed to the observation of every passer-by. In Arabia, they 
stain their fingers and toes red ; their eye-brows black, and 
their lips blue. In Persia, they paint a black streak around the 
eyes, color their eye-brows and hair, and stain the face and neck 
with figures of beasts, birds, flowers, &c. The Hottentot women 
paint the entire body in compartments of red and black. Hin- 
doo females, when they wish to appear particularly lovely, paint 
the body with saffron and tumeric mixed with grease. In nearly 
all the islands of the Pacific and Indian oceans, and in many other 
parts of the world, like the men, they tattoo the body, with an 
instrument resembling somewhat a fine- toothed comb, whose sharp 
teeth, dipped into a solution of indigo or soot, are thrust into the 
flesh, introducing the coloring matter to remain forever, and im- 
printing a great variety of fanciful figures on the face, the lips, 
the tongue, the limbs, the whole body. The process is painful, 
though not more so than that of the female Greenlander, who 
first saturates threads with soot, and then inserts them beneath 
the skin, and draws them through. In New Holland, the women 
cut themselves with shells, and by keeping open the wounds a 
long time, form wales or seams on the flesh, which they deem 
highly ornamental. And another singular addition is made to 
their beauty by taking ofl" the little finger of the left hand, at the 
second joint, — a process performed in infancy by tying a hair 
around it so tight as to produce mortification. In some parts of 
Hindoostan, at the time of marriage, a like portion of the third 
and little finger is removed. A similar custom prevails among 
the Hottentots. Among some of the savage tribes of America, 
and also in Sumatra and Arracan, continual pressure is applied 
to the skull to flatten it, and add to the beauty of its form. In 
nearly all the South Sea Islands, custom requires an incision to 
be made in the lobe of each ear, into which rolls of leaves, or 
long pieces of wood or ivory are inserted, and from these, shells 
or fish teeth are suspended, to such an amount that their weight 



PAGAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 25 

draws down the ear nearly to the shoulder, and not unfrequently 
tears it asunder. The mother of Sumatra carefully flattens the 
nose of her daughter ; and in New Guinea, the nose is perforated, 
and a large piece of wood or bone inserted, making it difficult to 
breathe. On the north-west coast of America, an incision more 
than two inches in length is made in the lower lip, and filled with 
a wooden plug. In Guiana, the lip is pierced with thorns, the 
heads being inside the mouth and the points resting on the chin. 
And in Java, Borneo, and Celebes, they file their teeth to a point, 
and color them black, considering it disgraceful to let them 
remain " white like the teeth of dogs." 

In some countries corpulency is esteemed essential to beauty ; 
and the wives of kings and chiefs are beloved in proportion to the 
sleek fatness and gross weight of their persons The Tunisian 
woman, of moderate pretensions to beauty, needs a slave under 
each arm to support her when she walks, and a perfect belle car- 
ries flesh enough to load down a camel. So anxious are mothers 
that their daughters should attain this unwieldy size, that they 
compel them to eat enormous quantities of fattening food and 
drink several bowls of camel's milk every day. Mungo Park 
describes a poor girl as crying for more than an hour, with a 
bowl at her lips, while her mother stood over her with a rod, and 
beat her cruelly, if she failed to swallow fast enough. And Capt. 
Clapperton found himself in not a little difficulty at Houssa, 
through the importunity of an Arab widow, whose wealth and 
rank, enforced by the charms of a huge person, black-dyed eye- 
brows, blue hair, red stained hands and feet, all adorned with 
necklaces, girdles and bracelets, seemed to fit her for the station of 
a queen, whither her aspirations tended, and to which, with Clap- 
perton for a husband, she doubted not she might attain. But he 
happened not (O cruel !) to fancy " a walking tun-butt" for a wife, 
and preferred the loss of the honors of African royalty to the life- 
companionship of five hundred pounds of Arab flesh. 

The beauty of a Chinese lady is in her feet, which in childhooa 
are so compressed by bandages as effectually to prevent any fur- 
ther increase in size. The four smaller toes are turned under the 
foot, to the sole of which they firmly adhere. The poor girl not 
only endures much pain, but becomes a cripple for life. Another 
mark of beauty and distinction lies in the length to which the 
finger nails are allowed to grow, — a length that requires them to 
be shielded from accident by casings of bamboo. The ambitious 
beauties of Siam, not content with protecting carefully these 
ever-growing excrescences of nature, provide themselves with 
artificial nails four inches long. 



26 CONDITION OF WOMEN IN 

Allow that, agreeably to the proverb, " there is no disputing 
of tastes," and that no nation or individual is responsible to 
another for peculiar customs, will it be questioned that the wear- 
ing of cumbrous and unwieldy ornaments, and the disfiguring of 
the body, and forcing it into uncouth forms at the expense of so 
much suffering, are customs offensive to nature, and to nature's 
God, — the legitimate progeny of Paganism 7 — and so far as ever 
grafted upon the stock of Christianity, are they more incongruous l| 
with its simplicity and at variance with its spirit, than repulsive ' 
to reason and common sense 1 Foolish and unseemly customs 
are not confined to Pagan and Mahometan females, it is true, — 
they exist in more enlightened lands ; but in these lands, they are 
one after another assailed, changed and banished by the mild genius 
of Christianity ; while, in the darker portions of the earth, they 
enter into the very constitution of society, and know no change 
or modification, more than the elements of nature, or the imme- 
morial rites of a bloody superstition. Deplorable, then, are the I 
delusions under which the god of this world hath bound down 
the nations that yield unresistingly to his sway, — severe the bond- 
age under which they wear out hated life, and melancholy the 
barbarous customs, which through conscience, fancy, or caprice, 
his tyrant arm imposes on successive generations. 

To all this may be added their unbounded superstition. Their 
servile fear of the gods amounts to a terror which quenches the 
kindlings of natural affection, and drives them on to deeds of 
darkest inhumanity. Ignorant of the God of love, and conceiving 
of their divinities as capricious, malignant and revengeful, they 
are easily impelled to sacrifices at which nature shudders, and 
every sentiment of true piety stands aghast. Unenlightened by 
education, and enslaved by the spirit of idolatry, they become the 
victims of priestly craft, without resistance, and the dupes of 
their own vain imaginings, as if reason and conscience entered 
not at all into their moral constitution. The African female 
ventures not to commence a journey, nor to undertake important 
business of any kind, till well furnished with protective charms, 
consisting chiefly of bits of paper, which contain a written sen- 
tence, or fragment of a sentence, carefully deposited within a bag 
fastened to her person. The women of Houssa, seeing Major 
Denham using a pen, came to him in crowds, to obtain a scrawl 
that should serve as an amulet to restore their beauty, to preserve 
the affections of their lovers, or to destroy a rival. If a child be 
born in Madagascar, on a day reputed unlucky, its evil destiny 
must be averted, by the destruction of its life, under the hands 



PAGAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 27 

of its parents. The only alternative is, to leave it in a narrow 
path, over which a herd of cattle is furiously driven, while the 
parents stand looking on from a distance ; and if it chance to 
escape unhurt, they run to embrace it, convinced that the malig- 
nant influence is removed. Sometimes the child is drowned in a 
vessel of water prepared for the purpose, or thrown into a pit, 
with its face downward, or suffocated by stuffing a cloth into its 
mouth ; but the parents themselves are commonly the execution- 
ers, under the impression that there is no other way of saving the 
child from the misfortunes that await its future years. From 
time immemorial, Hindoo mothers have thrown their infant 
children into the Ganges, to be devoured by alligators ; not 
because they were destitute of maternal affection, but because a 
mother's love was overpowered by her fears of the wrath of some 
offended deity. The Hindoo widow burns on the funeral pile 
of her husband. Thus she escapes the obloquy of widowhood, 
and becomes entitled, as she believes, to a residence with her 
husband and their relatives in heaven. Thanks to the gospel of 
Christ, this horrid superstition has relaxed its grasp on Indian 
mind ; but, till within a few years, thousands of widows became 
annually its victims ; and at the death of princes and other men 
of elevated rank, possessed of many wives, the dreadful sacri- 
fice has been all that Abaddon himself could desire. Twelve 
widows in one instance, eighteen in another, thirty-seven in 
another, and on the death of Ajie, prince of Malwar, fifty-eight 
threw themselves on the funeral piles of their husbands and per- 
ished. As late as 1844 twenty-four women were burnt in Pun- 
jab. There can be no doubt that this dreadful sacrifice is some- 
times voluntary on the part of the victim, but it is by no means 
universally so. Not only is all the earthly glory of the deed, and 
the happiness of a Pagan heaven promised on the one hand, and 
all the terrors of contempt and persecution through life, with ever- 
lasting infamy, arrayed on the other, but force is applied, with 
fiend-like perseverance, to compel the unhappy wife to mount 
the blazing altar of Moloch. 

Follow me to the immolation of a Brahmin's widow in Northern 
Hindoostan. The unfortunate woman, of her own accord, has 
ascended the burning pile. The torture of the fire is more than she 
can endure, and by a violent struggle she throws herself beyond 
the reach of the flames, and tottering to a river near by, is kindly 
plunged into it by some English gentlemen present, to assuage her 
torments. She retains her senses perfectly, shrinks with dread 
from another encounter with the flames, and refuses so to die. Her 



28 CONDITION OF WOMEN IN 

inhuman relatives then take her by the head and feet, and throw 
her upon the pile, and hold her there till driven away by the heat. 
They endeavor too, to stun her with blows, — but again she escapes 
and makes to the river. Her relatives then try to drown her, 
but one of the English gentlemen mentioned interferes, and she 
throws herself into his arms, begging him to save her. "1 can- 
not describe to you," says one present at the scene, '-the horror 
I felt at seeing her mangled condition ; almost every mch of skin 
on her body had been burnt off, — her legs and thighs, her arms 
and back, were completely raw, — her breasts dreadfully torn, and 
the skin dangling from them in threads, — the skin and nails of 
her fingers had peeled wholly off, and were hanging to the back 
of her hands. In fact, I never saw and never read of so entire a 
picture of misery as this poor woman displayed. She still dread- 
ed being again committed to the fire, and called to us to save her. 
Her friends at length desisted from their efiorts. We sent her to 
the hospital. Every medical assistance was given, but, after 
lingering twenty hours, in excruciating pain, her spirit departed." 

Such is the superstition of heathen lands. Its forms are vari- 
ous, but its spirit is everywhere the same. It leads its vota- 
ries to defile themselves with the mud of the streets, to measure 
the distance from their homes to their temples, by the length of 
their bodies prostrated every six feet of the way, — to swing in the 
air, suspended by hooks thrust through the muscles of the back, 
and to submit to a thousand other tortures, in honor of some 
cruel but imaginary deity. It teaches the brother to betray 
the sister, — the mother to imbrue her hands in the blood of her 
own offspring, — and the son to light the pile which consumes the 
mother that gave him life. It glories in deeds like these, as more 
pleasing to the gods than any alleviation of human woe that 
kindness can effect, and more intrinsically meritorious than all 
the moral virtues commended by the philosophy of Seneca, or the 
precepts of Christ. 

But it is time to close. We have now cursorily glanced at the 
character of woman, as unaffected by the refining and elevating 
influences of Christianity. We have seen her trodden down as 
the mire of the streets by him whom Heaven created to be her 
protector and comforter. We have seen unevangelized man 
everywhere, like the fabled generation of warriors springing 
from the serpent's teeth armed for the work of destruction, direct- 
mg his chief malignities against woman,— his best friend, his 
safest coimsellor,— his most unfailing solace,— because her native 
timidity and weakness invite the violence and insult of a coward- 



PAGAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 29 

arm ! We have seen her lost to self-respect, dead to instinctive 
affection, ignorant of the rights with which her Maker has invested 
her, unacquainted with her relations to eternity, indulgent to the 
wildest passions of depraved nature, and plunged far down the 
abyss of unnatural crime. We have marked her wanderings, 
listened to her complaints, and seen her scalding tears. And 
have we no sympathy in her sufferings 7 — no arm that will 
extend to her relief? — no voice that will call her to Calvary, and 
direct her eye to woman's friend and Saviour, and thence to 
a world ofunmingled purity and love'^ Measures are in pro- 
gress (thank God !) for restoring woman to her true dignity, and 
re-establishing her just relations to man as her husband, guar- 
dian, and unfailing friend. The same measures will restore the 
world to the dominion of Christ, and man, in all his tribes, to the 
sway of reason and revelation. Then shall it no more be said 
that 

" his ambition is to sink, 

To reach a depth profounder still, and still 
Profounder, in the fathomless abyss 
Of folly, plunging in pursuit of death ;" 

but he shall rise to " glory, honor, and immortality," and share 
it with the helper of his faith and love, the mother of his chil- 
dren, the softener of his dying pillow, — the kind angel that hovers 
over him as his soaring spirit takes its flight. Not far distant is 
the day, unless we quite mistake the " signs of the times," 
when, throughout all nations, woman shall resume the station 
Heaven first assigned her, and form again the loveliest ornament 
'>f humanity, — man's coadjutor in works of faith and labors of 
'ove, and childhood's most persuasive teacher of all that is virtu- 
ous, lovely, and of good report, in human disposition and action. 
Soon let that day of brightness dawn, — that glorious era be fully 
ushered in ; for it shall prove the termination of earth's bitterest 
woes, and the consummation of Heaven's most earnest labors 



END OF THE LECTURE. 



;i-0 CONDITION OF WOMEN IN 



THE VILLAGE GOSSIPS. 

" From time immemorial, in every clime and every coimtry, the 
village gossips are all alike, more busy about the affairs of 
others than their own. The scandalous tattle of a village in 
India is perhaps unequalled in any other part of the globe. If 
reputation experiences a wound in other countries, there it is 
absolutely massacred, where malice and jealousy, supported by 
the most unblushing falsehood, plants a barb of the most cruel 
slur in the reputation of many an innocent neighbor. 

"It frequently happens that some tell-tale repeats the scandal 
to the parties injured, which generally occasions a great uproar 
in the village ; the slandered person rushes like a fury from her 
hut and pours forth a volley of the most virulent and indecent 
railings that ever were heard, cracking her fingers and uttering 
horrible curses on the infamous slanderer : this does not fail to 
bring out the guilty party, who will either deny the whole with 
the most barefaced falsehood, or openly maintain her scandal 
and throw back curses on her injured neighbor's head; this 
produces a most furious exchange of abuses, which continues for 
some time with the most wonderful rapidity and loquacity, 
uttered in screams, somewhat resembling the cries of a jackal, 
till they become exhausted ; still eying each other, however, with 
looks of rage and defiance, and unable to separate, they sit them- 
selves down a little distance opposite each other, when one 
begins, her eyes sparkling with rage, the muscles of her face 
displaying all the malice of her heart, while the smile of irony 
and contempt is seen playing on her lips : she exposes to the 
spectators, that crowd round to enjoy the quarrel, every failing, 
and every scandalous tale she has either invented herself or 
heard of against her antagonist, heightening them with color- 
ing of the most malignant wit and cutting sarcasm, which 
generally causes laughter among the bystanders. The other, 
thus outraged, endeavors to keep her fury within bounds, and 
joining in the laugh with a demoniac look, she claps her hands 
and begins to sing a sort of wild air or chant, the words of 
which she extemporizes for the purpose ; these are a combination 
of more abominable railings, similes, etc., etc., against her 
antagonist and her ancestors, than ever were heard of in any 
other part of the world. The other quickly replies in the same 



PAGAN AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES. 31 

tune, and if her brain prove more fertile in malice and wicked- 
ness, and her sarcasms more acute, she is sure to bring her 
neighbor to such a pitch of fury that she springs from her seat 
within a few steps of her, when she proceeds to all the wild 
extravagancies of a maniac, using the most horrible language 
and the most shameless and indecent gestures, till the other, 
darting forward, grapples with her antagonist, and a most 
furious battle ensues, pulling of hair, scratching and blows : this 
continues with most wonderful obstinacy and courage, both 
sides preferring to die sooner than give ground, till they are 
forcibly separated by their husbands or friends. Sometimes 
these quarrels become almost general in the village, especially if 
there are several relatives of the party injured in the neigh- 
borhood." 

"Women of New Holland. 

" Although addicted to infanticide, they display, in other 
instances, an extraordinary degree of affection for their dead off- 
spring, evidenced by an act that almost exceeds credibility, had 
it not so often been witnessed among the tribes in the interior of 
the colony. 1 allude to the fact of deceased children, from the 
earliest age to even six or seven years, being placed in a bag 
made of kangaroo skins, and slung upon the back of the mother, 
who, besides this additional burthen, carries her usual culy, or 
bag for provisions, (fee. They carry them thus for ten or twelve 
months, sleeping upon the mass of mortal remains, which serves 
them for a pillow, apparently unmindful of the horrid fetor 
which emanates from such a putrefying substance. When the 
body becomes dry, or only the bones left, the remains are burnt, 
buried, or placed in a hollow trunk or limb of a tree : in the 
latter instance covering the opening carefully with stones, &c. 
All the information that could be procured from them respecting 
this disgusting custom, was, ' that they were afraid, if they 
buried them, the Buckee, or devil, would take them away.' "* 

Infanticide in the Society Islands. 

"Infanticide was carried," says the Rev. J. Williams, "to an 
almost incredible extent in the Tahitian and Society Islands;" 
and this he illustrates by the following statement : — 

"During the visit of the deputation, our respected friend, 
G. Bennet, Esq., was our guest for three or four months ; and 

• Wandenngs in New South Wales, &c., by G, Bennett, Esq., Vol. I., p. 125 



32 CONDITION OF ■WOMEN. 

on. one occasion, while conversing on the subject, he expressed a 
wish to obtain accurate knowledge of the extent to which this 
cruel system had prevailed. Three women were sitting in the 
room at the time, making European garments, under Mrs. W.'s 
direction ; and, after replying to Mr. Bennet's inquiries, I said, 
' I have no doubt but that each of these women has destroyed 
some of her children.' Looking at them with an expression of 
surprise and incredulity, Mr. B. exclaimed, ' Impossible ! such 
motherly, respectable women could never have been guilty of so 
great an atrocity.' ' Well,' I added, ' we '11 ask them.' Address- 
ing the first, I said to her, ' Friend, how many children have 
you destroyed?' She was startled at my question, and at first 
charged me with unkindness, in harrowing up her feelings, by 
bringing the destruction of her babes to her remembrance ; but, 
upon hearing the object of my inquiry, she replied, with a falter- 
ing voice, ' I have destroyed nme ! ' The second, with eyes 
sufi'used with tears, said, 'I have destroyed seven f and the 
third informed us that she had destroyed ^ve. Thus three indi- 
viduals, casually selected, had killed one-and-twenty children ! 
but I am happy to add that these mothers were, at the time of 
this conversation, and continued to be so long as I knew them, 
consistent members of my church. 

"On another occasion, I was called to visit the wife of a chief 
in dying circumstances. She had professed Christianity for 
many years, had learned to read when nearly sixty, and was a 
very active teacher in our adult school. In the prospect of 
death, she sent a pressing request that I would visit her imme- 
diately; and, on entering her apartments, she exclaimed, 'O 
servant of God, come and tell me what I must do ! ' Perceiving 
that she was suffering great mental distress, I inquired the cause 
of it ; when she replied, ' I am about to die ! ' ' Well,' I rejoined, 
' if it be so, what creates this agony of mind ? ' ' Oh, my sins, 
my sins ! ' she cried ; ' I am about to die ! ' I then inquired 
what the particular sins were which so greatly distressed her, 
when she exclaimed, ' Oh, my children, my murdered children ! 
I am about to die, and I shall meet them all at the judgment 
seat of Christ.' Upon this I inquired how many children she 
had destroyed ; and, to my astonishment, she replied, ' I have 
destroyed sixteen ! and now I am about to die ! '" 



CURIOSITIES 



EEMAEKABLE CUSTOMS 



PAGAN AND MOHAMMEDAN COUNTRIES, 



ILLUSTRATED BY 



ANECDOTEvS 



NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS 







PUBLISHED BY CALEB WRIGHT, 



CURIOSITIES 



REMARKABLE CUSTOMS. 



Curious Nests of East India Birds. 

In the opposite engraving are three pendulous nests, very inge- 
niously constructed. The one on the left is the nest of* the Indian 
sparrow, loxia Bengaliensis. It is made of grass, very curiously 
interwoven, like cloth, and contains two or three apartments. 
The sagacious occupants of these beautifully-constructed dwell- 
ings are said to light them, at night, with fire-flies, which they 
catch alive and confine with moist clay. The second nest, which 
is that of the baya, another species of sparrow, is also made of 
grass, and contains several apartments. It is suspended from a 
small twig, with the entrance downward, to secure its inmates from 
the attack of squirrels and other enemies. These birds associate 
in large communities, and hundreds of their pendulous nests may 
be seen suspended from the outer branches of one tree. 

" Equally curious in the structure of his nest," says Mr. Forbes, 
" and far superior in the variety and elegance of his plumage, is 
the tailor bird of Hindustan, so called from his instinctive inge- 
nuity in forming his nest. He first selects a plant with large 
leaves, and then gathers cotton from the shrub, spins it to a thread 
by means of his long bill and slender feet, and then, as with a 
needle, sews the leaves neatly together, to conceal his nest. 

" The tailor bird resembles some of the humming-birds at the 
Brazils in shape and color. The hen is clothed in brown ; but 
the plumage of the cock displays the varied tints of azure, 
purple, green, and gold, so common in those American beauties." 



WHITE ANTS. 




MALE. 



FEMALE. NEUTER. 




FEMALE OR QPKEN. 




^mM^^^"" 



ANT NEST. 



The white ants of India are very destructive to the wood- 
work of buildings, and to furniture and merchandise of every 
kind. An engineer, having returned from a journey, left his trunk 
on a table; the next morning, not only were all his clothes foiuul 
devoured, there being scarcely a piece as large as a shilling free 
from holes, but his papers also were destroyed, nor was a pier« 
of them left an inch square. The nest of the white ant is very 
ingeniously constructed of clay, and, in the course of three or fom 
years, rises to the height of ten or twelve feet. No sooner is u 



6 REMARKABLE INSTINCT OF YELLOW ANTS. 

colony established than the queen supplies it with a large popula- 
tion. Her abdomen increases until it becomes fifteen hundred or 
two thousand times larger than the rest of her body ; thus she 
equals in size twenty or thirty thousand of her own subjects, and 
she sometimes lays her eggs at the rate of sixty in a minute, or 
more than eighty thousand in a day. 




A Nest of Yellow Ants. 



RemarkE&ble Instinct of Yellow Ants. 

It is a remarkable fact that yellow ants keep and feed certain other 
insects for the purpose of obtaining from them a sweet nutritious 
liquid. These insects, which may be regarded as the milch cows 
of the ants, are the aphides, or plant-lice. They insert their 
suckers into the bark of plants, and thus absorb their sap, which 
becomes by digestion a fluid, scarcely inferior in sweetness to 
honey. The aphides occasionally throw it to a distance by a 
sudden muscular effort ; and, when ants are present, they watch 
this movement and immediately drink the liquid. They know, 
too, how to milk the aphides, patting the abdomen first on one 
side and then on the other, with their antennge, and eagerly 
drinking the drop which issues forth. An ant, having exhausted 
the milk of one aphis, goes to others, and when satiated returns 
to its dwelling. 



IDOL WORSHIP. 




A Hindoo Family carrying Offerings to an Idol. 

Mrs. Porter, the wife of a missionary in India, once met a man 
and woman with their three children. They were on their way 
to Amoor's temple. She asked them where they were going. 
They said, " To make worship." The man carried, in one 
hand, a fowl for sacrifice, and with the other led a little boy, 
who had in his hand three sweet potatoes. On the man's shoul- 
der was a little girl, about three years old, who had in her hand 
a cocoa-nut. The woman carried a brass plaie containing a little 
rice and saffron, some sugar, and some flowers. In her arms 
was a little child only a year old, and in its tiny hand it carried 
a plantain. Mrs. Porter asked, " What is this for ? " " It is for 
sacrifice," replied the mother. O, that Christian mothers would 
begin thus early to teach their children to worship the true God ' 



SAUGOR ISLAND. 



The view in the 
engraving is a part 
of Saugor Island, 
situated at the 
mouth of the Gan- 
ges. It is inhab- 
ited only by wild 
beasts. Tigers are 
very numerous 
there. These fe- 
rocious animals 
soinotimes attack 
the alligator, when 
a terrible battle 
ensues. Saugor is 
remarkable for be- 
lli g the place where 
a 2:reat annual fes- 
tival is celebrated. 
hi 1837 it was an- 
nounced, in some 
of the public jour- 
nals in Calcutta, 
that the luimberof 
boats at the island 
during the festival 
of that year was 
sixtT/ thousand; 
awd that the num- 
ber of pilgrims 
could not have 

been less than t/wee hundred thousand. '•'■ Saugor Island is tlie 
spot, and the January festival the solemn occasion, on which 
hundreds of mothers were wont, in fulfilment of solemn vows, 
to throw their unconscious, smiling infants into the turbid waters! 
And O, horrid to relate ! they bewailed the sacrifice as lost, and 
the gods unpropitiated, if these commissioned not the shark, 
and other monsters of the deep, to crush and devour their hap- 
less offspring before their own eyes ! " The sacrifice of chil- 
dren, at this festival, is now prohibited by the British govern- 
ment. 




12 



SUPERSTITIOUS CUSTOM tNTKRESTING INCIDENT. 



A Ssiperstitioias Custom. 

When the heathen of Ceylon are sick unto death, they call for 
the Brahmins to say mundrams over them ; for which they make 
presents, and, among other things, a cow is often provided. Tlic 
sick jerson takes hold of the tail of this cow, and, if possible, 
holds it in his hand while dying, professing to believe that by 
doing so the cow will assist him to cross the river of fire which 
lies between this and the world to which they go. After the 
spirit has left the body, the cow is driven away to the Brahmins. 
— Day spring. 




Interesting Incident in Ceylon. 



The inhabitants of Bambellepittya, in Ceylon, requested the 
missionaries to take charge of their school. At an appointed time, 
the scholars, with a large concourse of people, assembled in a 
beautiful grove of palm-trees, in which the school-house was situ- 
ated. One of the missionaries addressed the people as follows : 
" As Christian ministers, sent by the Christian church, we cannot 
give any of oqr time, nor be at any expense, excejjt to teach ' 
Christianity ; and these parents, and all others here assembled, 
are aware that, should we take their school under oiu" care, we 
should be unfaithful to those who sent us, but especially to j 
Jehovah, should we allow any heathenism to remain in it." ' 
About fifty sprightly-looking boys were then ordered, by their 



14 A HINDU DEVOTEE. 

parents and their teacher, to advance and give up their heathen 
books. In exchange for these, which were written on palm-leaf, 
and contained the most worthless and abominable trash, each boy 
received a Christian school book, suited to his attainments. A 
renunciation of heathenism was then read, which was listened to 
with the most profound attention ; and, when it was finished, there 
was a general shout of " Hondi! " " That is good." 




A Hindu Devotee. 

A young man, from Ougein, came to the annual fair at Ooncar, 
for the purpose of devoting himself to Bhyru, by leaping from a 
rock which overhangs the Nerbudda. He stated that, while 
sleeping near a temple, in the vicinity of Ougein, he was awak- 
ened by a smart blow on the shoulder ; and, on looking around, he 
discovered a cocoa-nut, a knife, and a looking-glass. On casting 
his eye on the glass, he became sensible of the presence of Bhyru, 
who commanded him to go to Ooncar and sacrifice himself, telling 
him he had already performed the sacrifice several times in former 
births, and this was the last time it would be required of him. 
On the morning of his immolation, he was early at the temple of 
Bhyru ; and having performed the customary ceremonies, and pre- 
sented some money to his divinity, — a huge stone smeared with 
red paint, — he began to ascend the rock. When he arrived at the 
brink of the precipice, he made some wild gesticulations to the 
multitude below ; cast down the cocoa-nut, glass, and knife : then, 



16 




ii^jJt'3<l>d 



SHALEH, 

Bom in Damascus in 1822; converted to Christianity, in Calcutta, in 1845. He was a 

Syaad, w direct descendent of Mohammed. 



16 



THE ISLANDERS. 



stepping back a few paces, rushed forward, and, springing into tho 
air, was in a niornent preci[>itated to the bottom and dashed to 
pieces. — Sunday School Magazine. 




The Islanders sacrificing a Human Victim, 



The Islanders. 



Not many centuries ago, there existed a people, on a certain 
island, who were very ignorant, snperstitious, and cruel. They 
lived in rude huts, made by driving stakes into the earth, and cov- 
ering them with the branches of trees. They were clad in the 
skins of wild beasts, tattooed their bodies, subsisted by fishing 
and hunting, and on the flesh and milk of their cattle, and were 
unacquainted with the institution of marriage. We cannot ascer- 
tain that they excelled in any art, except in that of making wicker 
baskets. Their religion had no tendency to elevate their charac- 
ter, for they believed in the transmigration of souls, and worshipped 
the sun, the moon, and deified men. Their religious ceremonies 
were performed in shady groves, or in rude temples of huge, rough 
stones, without roofs, the ruins of which are still to be seen. 
Caesar, in his Commentaries, informs us that one of their religious 
ceremonies consisted in making, of wicker-work, a hollow image 
of a man, about sixty feet in height, filling it with living men, 
women, and children, setting it on fire, and seeing these unhappy 
victims perish in the flames. Lucan, in describing one of their 
.sacred groves, says, " Nothing was to be seen there but multitudes 




The City qf Tocat in Persia. 







A Mosque at Agra in the East Indies. 



18 INCIDENT IN HONOLULU. A GOOROO. 

of altars on which they sacrifice human victims." Says Pliny, 
" They consider it a part of their most solemn and most obligatory 
religion to put men to death ; and to feed on their dead bodies 
they esteem most wholesome." 

Such was their condition ; yet they were not the dark sons of 
Ham, nor could their degradation be attributed to the influence 
of climate. They webe without the Bible. A few of these 
white sons of barbarism were brought to Rome, and sold in the 
public market as slaves. Some zealous Christians in that city 
took an interest in their welfare, and established a mission on their 
native island. Numbers were soon converted to Christianity, the 
Bible was translated into their language, schools were established, 
the arts and sciences taught, mind elevated, the social and moral 
feelings cultivated, and soon these barbarous tribes became a great, 
a noble, and enlightened people. The influence of their power,- 
enterprise, and benevolence is felt in every part of the world. 

Do you ask who these people are ? They are the descendants 
of the ancient Britons, who now inhabit the Island of Britain and 
these United States. Give the heathen the Bible, and it will do 
for them what it has done for us. — Caleb Wright. 



Admiiiistratiou of Justice at the Sandwich Islands. 

In July last, the governor of Oahu sent a company of prisoners 
through the streets of Honolulu, escorted by a file of soldiers and 
attended by a crier, who called the attention of the populace by 
asking them if the conduct of the prisoners had been right. It 
appears that they had been apprehended for knocking out their 
teeth, tattooing themselves, and indulging other practices of hea- 
thenism ; and the governor resorted to this method of punishing 
them. — Polynesian. 

A Crooroo. 

About twelve months ago, a great gooroo of the madhiva caste 
came to Cuddapah, a large town in the Madras presidency, to 
collect his disciples, impress them with the marks of his caste, 
and to fleece them of their money. His train consisted of twelve 
elephants, four camels, one hundred bullocks, fifty bandies, or carts, 
and about two hundred followers. He brought with him eight 
bullock-loads of idols, many of which are placed around a large 
room in which he resides. The practice of this great gooroo is to 



19 




Chinese Cat Market, 







Be$idence of Bev, Mr. Thomson in the forests of Borneo. 



20 A GOOROO. 

burn his disciples, in different parts of their bodies, with five red- 
hot copper seals, which are the signs of the particular caste to 
which he belongs. His tutelar deity is the monkey-god, the im- 
age of which, together with some sacred stones, he places before 
him and Avorships. In order to be impressed with these holy 




Huneman, the Monkey- God. 

seals, his disciples who have situations under government must 
give three months' pay, and those who are otherwise employed 
must give, according to their means, some fifteen, others thirty, 
and others fifty dollars. One rich man, in Cuddapah, actually 
gave, for himself and wife, the sum of one thousand dollars for 
being burnt with these copper seals ; and, besides this, made a 
great feast in honor of the gooroo, which cost him two hundred 
dollars. When the disciples of the great man approach his pres- 
ence, they bring with them ofl"erings of fruits, clothes, &.c. The 
secretary of the gooroo then informs him who they are, and the 
purpose for which they have come. Afterwards, he receives their 
offerings, and orders his servants to seal them with the copper 
seals, made red-hot. During the time they are occupied in this 




# 



22 COST OF IDOLATRY. 

painful task, he repeats a muntrum, or prayer to his god. After 
this is done, his disciples wash his feet with water, in a silver dish, 
pay homage to them, and then place flowers upon them. The 
gooroo then repeats muntrums behind a curtain, and dismisses his 
disciples with his blessing, giving them at the same time some 
holy food and water. They receive this with an act of homage, 
and then retire to their homes, having been well burnt in their 
skins, and well fleeced of their money. Should any disciple re- 
fuse to give the money which the gooroo demands, he is tied up 
to a pillar, well flogged, and then put out of caste. If a 
man out of caste wants to be restored to its privileges, he 
has only to offer a certain sum of money to the gooroo, and, 
after performing certain ceremonies, he is replaced in his former 
dignity. 

This great impostor rises at five in the morning ; and, after 
bathing himself in cold water, he stamps his body in many places 
with the holy seals, not made red-hot, but rubbed with white 
clay. He then worships the monkey-god, after which he sits up- 
on a stool, and relates some stories out of the pooranas, or sacred 
books of the Hindus. He then presents his disciples with some 
holy water and some sacred leaves, called toolesee. At noon he 
bathes again, worships the idol, and presents various offerings 
of rice, fruit, &c., to his followers. This is done to give the 
people an exalted idea of his charity. His food consists chiefly of 
boiled rice, mixed with sacred leaves, sugar, and ghee. 

This is one of the many impostors that are continually rambling 
over the numerous provinces of Hindustan, endeavoring to seduce 
and destroy its ignorant and degraded inhabitants. How appro- 
priately does the language of the great apostle of the Gentiles 
apply to these degraded people ! " For ye suff'er if a man bring 
you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of 
you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the 
face." And how thankful should you feel to that gracious 
Redeemer, who, by his glorious gospel, has delivered you from 
such degrading superstitions and lying wonders ! — Juv. Miss. 
Mag. 

Cost of Idolatry. 

Rev. J. J. Writbrect says, " I once visited the rajah of Burd- 
wan, and found him sitting in his treasury. Fifty bags of money, 
containing one thousand rupees in each, were placed before him. 



24 IDOLS AND TEMPLES GIVEN UP. 

' What,' said I, ' are you doing with all this money ? ' He replied, 
' It is for my gods.' ' How do yon mean that ? ' I rejoined. ' One 
part is sent to Benares, where I have two fine temples on the 
river-side, and many priests who pray for me ; another part goes 
to Juggernaut ; and a third, to Gaya.' Thus one native is spend- 
ing one hundred and eleven thousand dollars annually, from his 
princely income, upon idols and Brahmins." 

How long would it require a similar liberality, on the part of 
Christians, to extend the purifying and elevating influences of the 
gospel throughout the world ? — iV. Y. Recorder. 



Idols and Temples given up. 

In many of the villages in Southern India, idolatry is becoming 
quite unpopular. The following is a communication from a 
missionary at Nazareth, in the Tinevelly district. 

" The principal men and the whole village of Mavadepum, hav- 
ing signified their intention to embrace Christianity, reqnested me 
to visit them. On my arrival there, I was conducted to the river- 
side, where there were five temples belonging to the village. 
Here I found the people, and a great crowd beside, of heathen, of 
all classes, assembled under a large pupul-tree, adjoining one of 
the larger temples. I entered into conversation with those who 
had invited me, and soon discovered that the subject of their 
joining me in a body had been canvassed in the village, and that all 
were unanimous in begging me for a Christian teacher and school- 
master. They promised, from that day forth, ' to renounce idolatry, 
to serve God only, and to learn the way of salvation.' They 
promised, also, one hundred rupees in money, and materials 
towards their future prayer-house, which is to be built in January ; 
and begged I would assist them with one hundred and fifty rupees 
more, as they required a large place for their congregation, which 
amounts to five hundred and two. I asked them what further 
test they were prepared to give of their sincerity and disinterest- 
edness. Their reply was, ' Take our temples and dumb idols, 
which have ruined us.' I am sure no better test could have been 
given. Inquiry having been made for the keys, they were imme- 
diately brought and delivered into my hands. The temples were 
opened, and, although it was then midday, the interior was so 
dark that the idols could not be distinguished. With the help, 
however, of a torch, thirty-six idols, large and small, were brought 
out and thrown against each other with great violence, by which 




ZO 



The Hindu Serpent God. 




The Hindu Goddess Durga. 




The Chinese Budh. 



26 



AFRICAN SUPERSTITIONS. 



several were broken ; and, but for my checking them, not one 
would have been left whole. I took occasion to speak of the 
helplessness of idols, and the folly of such as put their trust in 
them. Some of the heathen were heard to say, * We are not to 
blame. Our forefathers left us as a legacy such a religion ; and 
the time will come when not only such temples, but even the 
Trichendore pagoda, will come into the possession of the mis- 
sionaries. What is it to us ? Where shall we then be ? ' The 
new converts were next directed to convey the idols to Nazareth ; 
and, after a couple of days, their bandies brought them all away, 
and they are now heaped up in my compound." 







Boa Constrictor. 



Worship of Snakes. 

The natives of Whydah (Africa) are very superstitious. The 
principal objects of their worship are snakes, which are held by 
them in great veneration. During my stay there, I visited the 
fetish temple, which is very different from the fetish temples on 
the Gold Coast. This temple is large enough to admit twenty 
persons at one time to go and worship the snakes, where they are 
always to be found. When I entered the temple, to my utter 
astonishment, I found not less than a dozen snakes, all coiled up, 
apparently very tame. Several of them I touched with my hands. 
They were from three to four feet long, and about as thick as a 
man's arm. This was the ordinary size of them ; some were 
much larger, others smaller. 

These snakes frequently come into the houses ; and sometimes 



28 AFRICAN SUPERSTITIONS. 

they find their way on the bed. One night, while I was staying 
at Whydah, one of them came into the room where I was sleep- 
ing, and remained there till the morning. To kill one of them 
would be death, or a slave must be given to die in your stead, to 
be sacrificed to the fetish. Should one happen to die on any 
person's premises, the owner, whoever he might be, would have 
to bear the expense of a custom^ which would be made for the 
dead snake ; and, when one of them is found any where, the fetish- 
man must be sent for to carry it away to the temple. Before he 
will touch it, he will wash his hands in some kind of herb-tea, 
prepared for the purpose, and then mutter something over to him- 
self ; after which he will take the living reptile into his hands. 
His attendants, who are in general very numerous on these occa- 
sions, will fall on their knees, and put their faces on the ground ; 
and, while they are in this position, the fetish-man will touch 
their backs with the snake ; after which, he carries it to the fetish 
temple, and lodges it there. This ceremony I have seen performed 
in the English fort-yard at Whydah. Doubtless this is one rea- 
son why so many of these reptiles resort to this temple. If one is 
found any where, it is always taken there and fed. — Rev. Wil- 
liam Allen. 



Tictims of African Superstition. 

Mr. Bushnell states, in a recent letter, that considerable external 
reformation has taken place among the Gaboon people, and at 
times some seriousness is apparent. Their ancient belief, how- 
ever, has a strong hold upon them. One article in their creed, 
which they are extremely reluctant to give up, is, that no individ- 
ual dies without the intervention of human agency. Hence, 
when any one deceases, they say that some person has bewitched 
him. Mr. Bushnell mentions the following fact, in illustration of 
the prevalent opinion : " Some seven or eight months ago, a man 
was killed by lightning, in a thunder-storm, while fishing in a 
canoe. Last Sabbath morning, a person was accused of bewitch- 
ing the deceased, or in some way causing the lightning to kill 
him. The poor victim was bound, therefore, placed in a canoe, 
taken out into the river, and drowned." 

Rev. Elijah Johnson, writing from the missionary station at 
Garretson, says that, on entering a neighboring town, he saw an 
old woman sitting on the ground. She seemed at least a hun- 
dred years old. She asked him to give her something. A man 



30 MATRICIDE. MARRIAGE OF HINDU WIDOWS. 

had died in the town, and they had made a palaver on this poor 
old woman, and said that she had " made witch " for the dead 
man, and had killed him. The day after he left there, they 
pounded up a quantity of sassay-wood, put three or four quarts of 
water to it, then, making the old woman hold her mouth open, 
they poured it down her throat. They then put a rope around 
her neck, dragged her out of the town, made a fire around her, 
and burned her up. — African Repository. 

Matricide. 

Whilst a missionary was addressing a congregation of Hindus 
by the side of a public road, in the environs of Calcutta, one of 
his hearers suddenly stopped him by a question which he insisted 
on having answered, and the following conversation ensued : — 

Hindu. Sir, is it a sin for a man to kill his mother? 

Missionary. Of course, a dreadful sin. 

Hin. Then you are the man guilty of committing it. 

Mis. How do you prove the truth of your accusation ? 

Hin, Why, sir, you drink the milk of the cow, and she is 
thus a mother to you ; afterwards, you kill the cow, and eat her 
flesh. 

Mis. Your premises are incorrect. I do not admit the cow 
to be my mother ; for, if she were, I should have four legs and a 
tail, and I appeal to the whole congregation for the truth ©f what 
I affirm. But may I not recriminate, and ask, Are not many of 
you Hindus literally guilty of the dreadful crime you thus unjust- 
ly ascribe to me ? for you know it is a practice in this country for 
children to burn their own mothers alive. 

The objector slunk away, the hearers were pleased at the argu- 
ment which silenced him, and the congregation at large took the 
closing reproof in perfect good temper. 

Marriage of Hindu Tt^idows. 

Custom requires Hindu parents to procure husbands for their 
daughters before they arrive to womanhood. It is not uncom- 
mon for a girl to become a bride before she is three years old. 
Should the husband die even before she leaves the parental abode, 
the infant bride becomes a widow ; and a widow, however juvenile 
or infantile, is doomed to remain such through life. A few years 
since, Babu Mutilal Seal, for the purpose of discoimtenancing this 



IMAGE OF BUDH. 31 

pernicious custom, offered the generous sum of five thousand dol- 
lars to the first respectable Hindu who would brave the scorn and 
prejudice of his countrymen by marrying a widow ; but no one 
has appeared as yet to claim the bounty. The same individual 
has recently proposed to the Dhurma Subha, a society of orthodox 
Hindus, to petition government for some enactment in favor of the 
marriage of widows. This step, however, created a great com- 
motion in the meeting. 



Great Imag^e of Budb at Bankok, Siam. 

In the middle of the temple which the king of Siam is build- 
ing, there is a large, solid platform, four feet high from the marble 
floor. This has its sides, a part of the distance from the- top 
down, thickly set with little pieces of glazed ware, in imitation of 
shell-work, and which, when done, are to be gilded and fancifully 
painted. 

On this platform is the great image of the reclining god. 
This image represents Gaudama, or Budh, as he is interchangea- 
bly called, lying down at full length, resting his head in his hand, 
on his elbow. As he thus lies, his head nearly touches the ceil- 
ing above, a distance from the platform on which his elbow rests 
of full forty-six or forty-eight feet. 

His body, or, if you please, his height, is fifty-one paces, or one 
hundred and fifty-three feet, reckoning three feet to the pace. 
Through, from the pit of the stomach to the back, as near as I 
could calculate, it was thirteen feet. Across the breast, from 
shoulder to shoulder, it is about nineteen feet. The arms, at the 
root, are four and a half feet thick. His hips are about seven feet 
through ; and his legs above the ankles, I think, about three feet 
through. 

From his heels to the end of his toes is sixteen feet. The soles 
of his feet are not yet completed, though nearly so. They are 
covered with flowers, elephants, kings and queens in full dress, 
fictitious serpents, pleasure halls, and two circles, nearly two feet 
in diameter, which are expressive of the limits of power. These 
are all 7nade of the most beautiful and the purest mother-of-pearl. 
The entire image, except the soles of the feet, is to be covered 
with pure gold. — Extract of a Letter from William P. Buell, 
dated Bankok, Siam, Oct. 7, 1S43. 



DESCMPTION 



OF THE 



HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 



OF THE 



THUGS; 



A SECT WHO PROFESS TO BE DIVINELY AUTHORIZED TO 



PLUNDER AND MURDER. 




PUBLISHED BY CALEB WRIGHT. 



HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 



THUGS. 



While Europeans have generally travelled through India in 
comparative security, arising from the dread inspired by the 
power and dominion of the British government, the path of the 
native has been beset with perils by hordes of ferocious robbers, 
which every where abound, from the highest regions of the 
Himelaya Mountains to the southern extremity of Hindoostan. 
The most sanguinary class of these freebooters are the Thugs, 
or Phansigars. Their existence appears to have been entirely 
unknown to Europeans until about the year 1800. From Janu- 
ary, 1826, to December, 1835, the number of Thugs committed 
by various magistrates amounted to 1562. Of these 328 were 
punished by death, 999 by transportation, 77 by imprisonment 
for life; from 21 security was required; 71 were sentenced to 
limited periods of imprisonment ; making a total of 1450 con- 
victed. Of the remainder, 21 were acquitted, 11 escaped, 31 
died before sentence, and 49 were admitted evidence for the 
prosecution. 

Gangs of Thugs sometimes consist of two or three hundred 
persons. In such instances, they commonly follow each other, 
in small parties of ten or twenty, upon roads parallel to each 
other, being prepared to concentrate on any point, when neces- 
sary. Different parties frequently act in concert, apprizing one 
another of the approach of travellers whose destruction promises 
a valuable booty. They assume the appearance of ordinary 
travellers : sometimes they pretend to be traders ; and, if en- 
riched by former spoliations, travel on horseback, with tents, 
and pass for wealthy merchants, or other persons of consequence. 
Sometimes they commence their route in more humble charac- 
ters ; but acquiring, in their rapacious progress, horses and bul- 
locks, these at once furnish them with the means of transporting 
the remainder of their plunder, and of making pretensions to 
higher degrees of wealth and station. 



4 HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

Thugs are accustomed to wait at choultries, on the high roads, 
or near towns where travellers rest. They arrive at such places, 
and enter towns and villages, in straggling parties of three or 
four persons, appearing to meet by accident, and to have no pre- 
vious acquaintance. On such occasions, some of the gang are 
employed as emissaries, to collect information, and, especially, 
to learn if any persons with property in their possession are 
about to undertake a journey. They are often accompanied by 
children of ten years of age and upwards ; who, while they per- 
form menial offices, are gradually initiated into the horrid prac- 
tices of Thuggee, and contribute to prevent suspicion of their 
real character. Skilled in the arts of deception, they enter into 
conversation, and insinuate themselves by obsequious attentions 
into the confidence of travellers of all descriptions, to learn from 
them whence they came, whither and for what purpose they are 
journeying, and of what property they are possessed. When, 
after obtaining such information as they deem requisite, the 
Thugs determine to attack a traveller, they usually propose to 
him, under the specious plea of mutual safety, or for the sake 
of society, to travel together ; or else they follow him at a little 
distance, and, when a fit opportunity offers for effecting their 
purpose, one of the gang suddenly throws a rope or sash round 
the neck of the unfortunate victim, while the rest contribute, in 
various ways, to aid the murderous work. 

Intrepidity does not appear to be a characteristic of the Thugs ; 
and, in truth, it is a quality not to be looked for in assassins by 
profession. A superiority in physical force is generally regarded 
as an indispensable preliminary to success. Two Thugs, at the 
least, are thought necessary for the murder of one man ; and, 
more commonly, three are engaged. Some Thugs pride them- 
selves upon being able to strangle a man single-handed ; and 
this is esteemed a most honorable distinction. But the majority 
of them are, and ever have been, firm adherents of the maxim, 
that " discretion is the better part of valor." 

Some variations have existed in the manner of perpetrating 
the murders ; but the following seems to be the most general. 
While travelling along, one of the gang suddenly throws the 
rope or cloth round the neck of the devoted individual, and 
retains hold of one end, the other end being seized by an accom- 
plice. The instrument of death, crossed behind the neck, is 
then drawn very tight, the two Thugs who hold it pressing the 
head of the victim forwards : a third villain, who is in readiness 



OF THE THUGS. O 

behind the traveller, seizes him by the legs, and he is thus 
thrown on the ground. In this situation, there is little opportu- 
nity of resistance. The operation of the noose is aided by kicks 
inflicted in the manner most likely to produce vital injury, and 
the suff'erer is thus quickly despatched. 

Tlie best precautions are taken to guard against discovery or 
surprise. Before the perpetration of the murder, some of the 
gang are sent in advance, and some left in the rear of the place, 
to keep watch, to prevent intrusion, and to give warning, if 
occasion requires, to those engaged in the act. Should any 
persons unexpectedly pass that way before the murdered body is 
buried, some artifice is practised to prevent discovery, such as 
covering the body with a cloth, while loud lamentations are 
made, professedly on account of the sickness or death of one of 
their comrades ; or one of the watchers will fall down, apparently 
writhing with pain, in order to excite the pity of the intruding 
travellers, and to detain them from the scene of murder. 

Such are the perseverance and caution of the Thugs, that, in 
the absence of a convenient opportunity, they have been known 
to travel in company with persons, whom they have devoted to 
destruction, for several days before they executed their inten- 
tion. If circumstances favor them, they generally commit the 
murder in a jimgle, or in an unfrequented part of the country, 
and near a sandy place or dry watercourse. Particular tracts 
are chosen, in every part of India, where they may exercise their 
horrid profession with the greatest convenience and security. 
The most favorite places are much-frequented roads, passing 
through extensive jungles, w^here the ground is soft for the grave, 
and where the local authorities take no notice of the bodies. 

In these chosen spots, a hole, three or four feet in depth, usu- 
ally forms the grave of the unhappy traveller, who is placed in 
it with his face downwards. The barbarous character of the 
Thugs is displayed in their treatment of the wretched remains 
of the murdered persons. Though death brings a termination of 
suffering, it does not put an end to the outrages of the murder- 
ers. Long and deep gashes are made in various parts of the 
bodies: sometimes the limbs are disjointed, and the figure dis- 
torted into unusual positions. These outrages arise from various 
motives. Their intention generally is to expedite the decom- 
position of the body, and to prevent its inflation, which, by 
causing fissures in the superincumbent sand, might attract jack- 
als, and thus lead to the discovery of the corpse. Sometimes, 



6 HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

however, these deeds have been the result of disappointment, 
and the emanations of a petty and unmanly revenge. When the 
amount of plunder is less than had been expected, the villains 
have frequently vented their displeasure in wanton indignities 
on the unconscious remains of the dead. 

If, when a murder is perpetrated, a convenient place for inter- 
ring the body be not near, or if the Thugs be apprehensive of dis- 
covery, it is either tied in a sack, and carried to some spot where 
it is not likely to be found, or is put into a river or a well. In 
Oude, where the fields are almost all irrigated from wells, the 
bodies were generally thrown into them ; and when the cultivat- 
ors discovered these relics of crime, they hardly ever thought 
it worth while to ask how they came there — so accustomed were 
they to find them. If none of these expedients be advisable, a 
shallow hole is dug, in which the corpse is buried till a fit place 
for interring it can be discovered, when it is removed, and cut 
in the manner already mentioned. If compelled to perform the 
interment under circumstances which subject them to the risk 
of observation, the Thugs put up a screen on the wall for a 
tent, and bury the body within the enclosure ; pretending, if 
inquiries are made, that their women are within the screen. If 
the traveller had a dog, it is killed, lest the affection of the ani- 
mal should cause the discovery of the body of his murdered 
master. 

Travellers resting in the same choultry with Thugs are some- 
times destroyed in the night. On these occasions, a person is 
not always murdered when asleep ; as, while he is in a recum- 
bent posture, the stranglers find a difficulty in applying the cloth. 
The usual practice is, first to awaken him suddenly, with an 
alarm of a snake or a scorpion, and then to strangle him. 

In attacking a traveller on horseback, one of the gang goes in 
front of the horse, and another has his station in the rear ; a third, 
walking by the side of the traveller, keeps him engaged in con- 
versation, till, finding that he is off his guard, he suddenly seizes 
the victim by the arm, and drags him to the ground, the horse 
at the same time being seized by the foremost villain: the mis- 
erable sufferer is then strangled in the usual manner. 

Against Thugs, it must be obvious that arms, and the ordinary 
precautions taken against robbers, are unavailing. When a per- 
son is armed with a dagger, it is usual for one of the villains to 
secure his hands. It sometimes happens that entire parties of 
travellers, while journeying in imaginary security, are suddenly 



OF THE THUGS. 



cut off. Such are the cruelty and cupidity of these wretches, 
that, on the presumption of every traveller possessing concealed 
treasure, or some property, however trifling, the greatest appa- 
rent indigence does not always afford security. 

The plunder is sometimes carried home, sometimes disposed 
of on the road. If the murdered person resided near the place 
of his assassination, the property is carried to a distance : if, 
as is more commonly the case, he is a stranger, they do not scru- 
ple to offer the fruits of their rapine in the immediate vicinity 
of their crime : the only precaution taken is, that the place of 
sale be in advance of that where the murder was committed, and 
not a village where the traveller had previously been seen. 

A portion of the plunder is usually appropriated to defraying 
the expenses of religious ceremonies ; and sometimes a part is 
also allotted for the benefit of widows and families of deceased 
members of the gang. The residue of the booty, being divided 
into several parts, is generally shared as follows — to the leader, 
two shares ; to the men actually concerned in perpetrating the 
murder, and to the person who cut the dead body, each one 
share and a half; and to the remainder of the gang, each one 
share. 

The operations of the Thugs are facilitated, and their designs 
cloaked, by a peculiar dialect : they have recourse, also, to a 
variety of signs. Drawing the back of the hand along the chin, 
from the throat outwards, implies that caution is requisite — that 
some stranger is approaching. Putting the open hand over the 
mouth, and drawing it gently down, implies that there is no 
longer cause for alarm. If an advanced party of Thugs over- 
take any traveller whom they design to destroy, but have need of 
more assistance, they make certain marks on the roads, by which 
those of 'the gang Avho follow understand that they are required 
to hasten forward. A party in advance also leaves certain 
marks, where a road branches off, as intimations to those who 
are behind. They draw their feet along the dust, in the direc- 
tion they have taken ; and if their friends are to follow quickly, 
they leave the dust piled up at the end of the line where the 
foot drops, or make a hole in the dust with the heel. If the 
road afford no dust, they leave two stones, placed one upon the 
other, in the line they have taken, and strew a few leaves of 
trees along the road. If their coadjutors are to make haste, they 
make a very long line of leaves. They have many other signs. 
for similar purposes. 



8 HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

Of the number of persons who fall victims to these lawless 
associations, it is obvious that no estimate can be made deserving 
of the slightest confidence. The number has, without doubt, 
varied greatly at different periods. There is reason to believe 
that, from the time of the conquest of Mysore, in 1799, to 1807 
and 1808, the practice, in that part of India, reached its height, 
and that hundreds of persons were annually destroyed. In one 
of his reports, the magistrate of Chittoor observes, " I believe 
that some of the Pliansigars have been concerned in above two 
hundred murders : nor will this estimate appear extravagant, if 
it be remembered that murder was their profession — frequently 
their only means of gaining a subsistence. Every man of fifty 
years of age has probably been actively engaged, during twenty- 
five years of his life, in murder ; and, on the most moderate com- 
putation, it may be reckoned that he has made one excursion a 
year, and met, each time, with ten victims." 

The profession of a Thug, like almost every thing in India, 
is hereditary, the fraternity, however, receiving occasional reen- 
forcement from strangers ; but these are admitted with great 
caution, and seldom after they have attained mature age. 

The children of Thugs, during their more tender years, are 
kept in ignorance of the occupation of their fathers. After a 
time they are permitted to accompany them ; but a veil is thrown 
over the darker scenes of the drama. To the novice, indeed, 
the expedition presents nothing but an aspect of pleasure. He 
is mounted on a pony ; and being, by the laws of the Thugs, 
entitled to his share of the booty, he receives a portion of it, in 
presents suited to his years; the delight attending the acquisi- 
tion being unalloyed by any consciousness of the means by which 
it has been obtained. The truth reveals itself by degrees. In 
a short time, the tyro becomes aware that his presents are the 
fruits of robbery. After a while, he has reason to suspect that 
robbery is aggravated by a fouler crime. At length, suspicion 
passes into certainty ; and finally, the pupil is permitted to wit- 
ness the exercise of the frightful handicraft which he is destined 
to pursue. The moral contamination is now complete ; but it 
is long before the disciple is intrusted with the performance of 
the last atrocity. He passes through a long course of prepara- 
tory study — being first employed as a scout, next as a sexton, 
then as a holder of the limbs — before he is in any case thought 
worthy of being elevated to the dignity of a strangler. 

A too precipitate disclosure of the frightful truth has some- 



OF THE THUGS. 



times produced fatal coiisequences. The following affecting 
story, related by a Thug who had become approver against his 
comrad(;s, will illustrate this. " About twelve years ago," said 
the narrator, " my cousin, Aman Subahdar, took out with us my 
cousin Kurhora, brother of Omrow, (approver.) a lad of fourteen, 
for the first time. He was mounted on a pretty pony ; and 
Hursooka, an adopted son of Aman, was appointed to take 
charge of the boy. We fell in with five Sieks; and when we 
set out before daylight in the morning, Hursooka, who had been 
already on three expeditions, was ordered to take the bridle, and 
keep the boy in the rear, out of sight and hearing. The boy 
became alarmed and impatient, got away from Hursooka, and 
galloped up at the instant the '/ hirnee,^ or signal for murder, 
was given. He heard the screams of the men, and saw them 
all strangled. He was seized with a trembling, and fell from his 
pony. He became immediately delirious, was dreadfully alarmed 
at the turbans of the murdered men, and, when any one touched 
or spoke to him, talked wildly about the murders, screamed as 
if in sleep, and trembled violently. We could not get him for- 
ward; and, after burying the bodies, Aman, myself, and a few 
others, sat by him while the gang went on. We were very fond 
of him, and tried all we could to tranquillize him, but he never 
recovered his senses, and before evening he died. I have seen 
many instances of feelings greatly shocked at the sight of the 
first murder, but never one so strong as this. Kurhora was a 
fine boy ; and Hursooka took his death much to heart, and 
turned Byragee. He is now at some temple on the banks of the 
Nerbudda River." 

The indiscriminate slaughter in which these miscreants might 
oe tempted to indulge is in some degree restrained by supersti- 
tion. It is deemed unlucky to kill certain castes and classes ; 
and their members are therefore usually respected. The most 
important and extended exception to the general rule of murder, 
is that of the female sex. Thugs, who have any real regard to 
the principles which they profess to respect, never take the lives 
of women. It cannot, however, be supposed that such a rule 
should be invariably observed by such persons as form the soci- 
ety of Thugs ; and, in fact, it is constantly violated. " Among 
us," said one of the approvers interrogated by Captain Sleeman, 
" it is a rule never to kill a woman ; but if a rich old woman is 
found, the gang sometimes get a man to strangle her, by giving 
him an extra share of the booty, and inducing him to take the 



10 



HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 



responsibility upon himself. We have sometimes killed other 
prohibited people, particularly those of low caste, whom we 
ought not even to have touched." 

Among the privileged classes are washermen, poets, profess- 
ors of dancing, blacksmiths, carpenters, musicians, oil-venders, 
sweepers, the maimed, the leprous, and those persons who carry 
the water of the Ganges into distant parts of India, to be used 

for religious purposes. 

The sacred cow, in 
the eyes of all Hindoos 
who have any preten- 
sions to consistency, is 
a protection to its pos- 
sessor ; art is, howev- 
er, sometimes resorted 
to, for the purpose of 
removing this impedi- 
ment to business. A 
party of Thugs pro- 
jected the murder of 
fourteen persons, in- 
cluding several wo- 
men ; but the design 
could not be carried 
into effect, because 
the victims had a cow 
with them. With 
some difficulty, they were persuaded to sell the cow to the 
Thugs ; who, to induce the travellers to consent to the sale, 
pretended that they had vowed to make an offering of a cow 
at Shaphore, and were much in want of one. The cow was 
actually presented to a Brahman at Shaphore ; and, the obsta- 
cle being removed, the whole of the unsuspecting travellers, 
including the females, were, two or three hours afterwards, 
strangled. 

The movements of the followers of Thuggee are invariably 
governed by omens with which they believe their goddess favors 
them. However favorably an expedition may have been com- 
menced, success is liable to be postponed by a muhipiicity of 
ominous appearances. The dog enjoys the prerogative of putting 
a veto on their proceedings, by shaking his head. Sneezing 
entitles all the travellers within the gripe of the assassins to the 




A Carrier of the Ganges Water. 



OF THE THUGS. 11 

privilege of an escape, and no one dares to put them to death. 
The fighting of cats, in the fore part of the night, is a good 
omen ; but, if heard towards morning, it betokens evil ; the evil, 
however, may be averted by gargling the mouth with a little 
sour milk, and then spirting it out. The fighting of cats during 
the day is a very bad omen, and threatens great evil: if the 
cats fall down from a height while fighting, it is still worse. 
These ills are beyond the healing influence of sour milk, and 
call for nothing less than sacrifice. The noise of jackals fight- 
ing is also a very bad omen, and involves the necessity of leav- 
ing the part of the country in which the gang hears it. Almost 
every sound made by animals, birds, and insects, and also their 
various movements, are regarded as ominous either of good or of 
evil. " There are always signs around us," say the Thugs, " to 
guide us to rich booty and to warn us of danger ; and if we are 
only wise enough to discern them, and religious enough to 
attend to them, we shall prosper in all our undertakings." 

The following colloquy will illustrate the opinions, enter- 
tained by Thugs generally, as to the danger of associating with 
those who have not been regularly educated ; the importance 
of attending to rules and omens ; and the value and excellence 
of Thug learning. 

Capt. Sleeman. You consider that a borka (a leader) is 
capable of forming a gang, in any part of India to which he may 
be obliged tb flee ? 

Sahib and Nasir. Certainly ; in any part that we have seen 
of it. 

Capt. S. Do you know any instance of it ? 

Sahib and Nasir. A great number. Mudee Khan was from 
the old Sindouse stock, and was obliged to emigrate after the 
attack upon that place. Many years afterwards, we met him in 
the Deccan ; and he had then a gang of fifty Thugs, of all castes 
and descriptions. We asked him who they Avere : he told us. 
that they were weavers, braziers, bracelet-makers, and all kinds 
of ragamuffins, whom he had scraped together, about his new 
abode on the banks of the Heran and Nerbudda Rivers, in the 
districts of Jebulpore and Nursingpore. He was a Mussulman ; 
and so were Lai Khan, and Kalee Khan, who formed gangs, 
after the Sindouse dispersion, along the same rivers. 

Capt. S. But these men have all been punished ; which does 
not indicate the protection of Davy. 

Sahib and Nasir. It indicates the danger of scraping to- 



12 



HABITS AND SUPi:KSa.li. lur-o 



gether such a set of fellows for Thuggee. They killed all 
people indiscriminately, women and men, of all castes and pro- 
fessions ; and knew so little about omens, that they entered 
upon their expeditions, and killed people, in spite of such as the 
most ignorant ought to have known were prohibited. They were 
punished, in consequence, as we all knew that they would be ; 
and we always used to think it dangerous to be associated with 
them, for even a few days. Ask many of them who are now 
here — Kureem Khan, Sheikh Kureem, Rumzanee, and others — 
whether this is not true ; and whether they ever let go even a 
sweeper, if he appeared to have a rupee about him. 

Capi. S. And you think that, if they had been well instruct- 
ed in the signs and rules, and attended to them, they would 
have thrived ? 

Sahib and Nasir. Undoubtedly ! so should we all. 

Capt. S. You think that an inexperienced person could not 
any where form a gang of Thugs of himself? 

Sahib and Nasir. Never. He could know nothing of our 
rules of augury, or proceedings ; and how could he possibly suc- 
ceed ? Does not all our success depend upon knowing and ob- 
serving omens and rules ? 

Capt. S. It would, therefore, never be very dangerous to 
release such a man. 

Sahib and Nasir. Never ; unless he could join men better 
instructed than himself. Every one must be convinced, that it 
is by knowing and attending to omens and rules that Thuggee 
has thrived. 

The practice of Thuggee is not confined to adventurers upon 
land. The rivers of India are infested by bands of fresh-water 
pirates, of similar habits to those of the land Thugs, possessing 
the same feeling, and differing from them only in a few trifling 
particulars. There is still another class of Thugs, who murder 
such persons only as are travelling with their children. Their 
only object is to secure the children and sell them into slavery. 

The dark and cheerless night of superstition, which has long 
clouded the moral vision of India, has given rise to institutions 
and practices so horrible, that, without the most convincing evi- 
dence, their existence could not be credited by minds trained 
under happier circumstances than those which prevail in the East. 
That giant power, which has held the human race in chains 
wherever the pure and unadulterated doctrines of revelation 
have not penetrated, has, in India, revelled in the wantonness of 



OF THE THUGS. 13 

prosperity ; the foundations of delusion have been laid wide and 
deep ; the poison of a false and brutalizing creed has been insin- 
uated into every action of daily life ; and the most obvious dis- 
tinctions of right and wrong have been obliterated. 

The fact of the existence of the cold-blooded miscreants who, 
in India, make a trade of assassination, is sufficiently horrible ; 
but when it is added, that their occupation is sanctioned by the 
national religion, — that the Thugs regard themselves as engaged 
in the special service of one of the dark divinities of the Hindoo 
creed, — that the instruments of murder are in their eyes holy, — 
and that their faith in the protection of their goddess, and the 
perpetuity of their craft, is not to be shaken, — we must be struck 
by the reflection, that we have opened a page in the history of 
man, fearful and humiliating beyond the ordinary records of 
iniquity. 

The genius of Paganism, which has deified every vice, and 
thus provided a justification of the indulgence of every evil pro- 
pensity, has furnished the Thugs with a patron goddess worthy 
of those whom she is believed to protect. Of Kalee, the deity 
of destruction, they are the most devout and assiduous worship- 
pers : in her name they practise their execrable art ; and their 
victims are immolated in her honor. The Thugs believe that 
Kalee formerly cooperated more directly with them, by dispos- 
ing of the bodies of those whom they murdered, but she required 
them not to look back to witness her operations. All was well, 
so long as they observed this rule ; but the services of the god- 
dess as a sextoness were lost through the carelessness or indiscreet 
curiosity of one of the association. Of the circumstances attend- 
ant on this mischance, there are different versions ; and at least 
two are in pretty general circulation. According to one, a party 
of Thugs, having destroyed a traveller, left the body, as usual, 
unburied, in perfect confidence of receiving the wonted aid from 
the goddess. A novice, however, unguardedly looking behind 
him, saw the patroness of the Thugs in the act of feasting on 
the corpse, one half of it hanging out of her mouth. According 
to another report, the person looking back was a slave ; and the 
goddess was engaged, not in satisfying the demands of hunger, 
or gratifying a taste for luxury by swallowing the murdered 
traveller, but in tossing the body into the air ; for what purpose 
does not appear. The offence to the goddess is said, also, to 
have been aggravated by the fact that she was not attired with 
sufficient strictness to satisfy her sense of decorum. Both tales 



14 HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

agree in representing the goddess as highly displeased, and as visit- 
ing her displeasure upon her servants, the Thugs, by condemning 
them to bury their victims themselves. Though she refused any 
longer to relieve the earth of the loathsome burdens with which 
her worshippers encumbered it, she was so considerate as to pre- 
sent her friends with one of her teeth for a pickaxe, a rib for a 
knife, and the hem of her lower garment for a noose. Whether or 
not this origin of the pickaxe be generally received, it is certain 
that this instrument is held by the Thugs, throughout India, in 
the highest veneration. Its fabrication is superintended with the 
greatest care ; and it is consecrated to the holy duty to which it 
is destined with many ceremonies. In the first place, a lucky 
day must be fixed upon : the leader of the gang then instructs a 
smith to make the required tool, and the process is conducted 
with the most profound secrecy. The door is peremptorily 
closed against all intrusion ; the leader never quits the forge 
while the manufacture is going on ; and the smith must engage in 
no other work till his sacred task is completed. The pickaxe, being 
made, must next be consecrated. Certain days of the week are 
deemed more auspicious for this purpose than the rest : Monday, 
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday, enjoy the distinction. Care 
is taken that the shadow of no living thing may fall on the axe, 
as this would contaminate the devoted implement, and frustrate 
all the pains that had been taken in its formation. A doctor 
most deeply versed in the learning of the Thugs undertakes the 
solemn office of consecration. He sits down with his face to 
the west, and receives the pickaxe in a brass dish. The instru- 
ment which is to supply the want occasioned by the cessation 
of the goddess's personal labors is first washed in water, which 
is received into a pit dug for the purpose. The pickaxe then re- 
ceives three other ablutions. The second washing is made with 
a mixture of sugar and water ; the third with sour milk ; and 
the fourth with ardent spirits. With red lead the pickaxe is 
marked, from the head to the point, with seven spots. It is 
again placed on the brass dish, and, with it, a cocoa-nut, some 
cloves, white sandal-wood, sugar, and a few other articles. A 
fire is now kindled, and the fuel consists of dried cow-dung and 
the wood of the mango or byr-tree. All the articles deposited 
in the brass pan are, with the exception of the cocoa-nut, thrown 
into the fire ; and when the flame rises, the Thug priest, hold- 
ing the pickaxe with both hands, passes it seven times through 
the fire. The cocoa-nut is now stripped of its outer coat, and 



OF THE THUGS. 15 

placed on the ground. The controller of the pickaxe, holding it 
by the point, then says, " Shall I strike ? " The by-standers sig- 
nifying their assent, he strikes the cocoa-nut with the butt-end of 
the pickaxe, and breaks it, exclaiming, " All hail, mighty Davy,* 
great Mother of us all ! " The surrounding spectators respond, 
"All hail, Davy! and prosper the Thugs!" This is a most 
interesting and exciting moment ; for, upon the hardness of the 
nut, the skill of the operator, and the accidental circumstances 
which may affect the force or direction of the blow, depends the 
realization of the hopes of the community. If the cocoa-nut be 
not severed at one blow, all the labor is thrown away ; the 
goddess is understood to be unpropitious; another day must be 
selected for the repetition of the ceremonies, and all the trouble 
be incurred again. If, however, the nut is cleft at once, the 
proof of the approval of the goddess is indisputable. The whole 
of the shell, and some of the kernel of the nut, is thrown into the 
fire ; the pickaxe is carefully tied up in a clean white cloth, and, 
being placed on the ground to the west, the assembled specta- 
tors, turning in that direction, prostrate themselves in adoration 
before " that which their own hands have made ; " that which 
the labor of the smith might have fashioned with equal facility 
into an object of reverence or of contempt ; and which, while it 
receives divine honors, is destined to assist in a series of acts 
most horrible and disgusting. 

The ceremony of prostration concluded, all present receive a 
portion of the cocoa-nut. The fragments are then collected, and 
thrown into the pit which had been previously prepared, lest, if 
they remained on the ground, the sacred relics might be outraged 
by the defiling touch of some human foot. These ceremonies, 
elaborate as they are, suffice only for a single expedition. 

When the sacred pickaxe is thus prepared, it must be placed 
in safe custody : it is not every Thug who can be trusted with 
it. The person who bears it is selected, principally, for his 
shrewdness, caution, and sobriety. It is, however, only when 
on a journey that it is intrusted to human care at all. When in 
camp, it is deposited in the earth, under the especial protection 
of the goddess. When buried, it is always placed with the 
point in the direction in which the party intend to proceed ; and 
they have the fullest confidence that, if another course is to be 
preferred, the point will be found to have veered round so as to 
indicate the better way. 

* Davy, Bhowanee, and Kalee, are different names of the same goddess. 



16 HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

When the pickaxe is buried, no foot must touch the earth 
which covers it ; nor must it, at any time, be approached by an 
unclean animal, or any object which bears contamination. After 
each time that it has been used for the preparation of a grave, it 
must be submitted to the purification of the bath. 

If the pickaxe falls from the hand of the man who bears it, 
dismay spreads through the gang. The omen is regarded as of 
the most fearful description : its horrors are aggravated by 
uncertainty as to the nature of the approaching evil, and even 
as to the party upon whom it is to descend. The omen may 
indicate the death of the individual who had the care of the 
sacred weapon, and who, through heedlessness or unavoidable 
fatality, suifered it to drop from his embrace ; or it may fore- 
bode some dreadful reverse to the fortunes of the gang. Meas- 
ures are immediately taken to frustrate the evil omen ; and 
the first step is, to deprive the unhappy pickaxe-bearer of his 
office. 

The enterprise in which they are engaged, whatever it be, 
is immediately abandoned ; and the pickaxe must be consecrated 
anew. Even these precautions are insufficient to restore things 
to their original state. The misfortune upon the gang is a sen- 
tence of excommunication from the society of all faithful Thugs. 
No other party will ever associate with one whose pickaxe has 
fallen, lest they should be involved in the evil which is appre- 
hended to the "doomed ones." 

The pickaxe affords the most solemn sanction of an oath 
among these murderers ; and if any sanction can bind their con- 
sciences, it is. perhaps, the only one capable of efl!ecting that pur- 
pose. Compared with it, neither the water of the Ganges weighs 
with the Hindoo, nor the Koran with the Mussulman. "If any 
man swears to a falsehood upon a pickaxe properly consecrated," 
said the Thugs, " we will consent to be hanged if he survive the 
time appointed. Appoint one, two, or three days, when he 
swears, and we pledge ourselves that he does not live a moment 
beyond the time. He will die a horrid death ; his head will turn 
round, his face towards the back ; and he will writhe in torture 
till he dies." The pickaxe is, in short, the standard around 
which all the gloomy family of Thug superstitions rally ; it is 
regarded as the great source of security and prosperity. The 
instrument of strangulation is held in esteem : but that of burial 
in infinitely more; the Thugs think of it with enthusiasm. 
"Do we not," said one interrogated by Captain Sleeman — "do 



OF THE THUGS. IT 

we not worship it every seventh day? Is it not our standard? 
Is its sound ever heard, when digging the grave^ by any but a 
Thug ? And can any man ever swear to a falsehood upon it ? " 
"How could we dig graves," asked another, "with any other 
instrument ? This is the one appointed by Davy, and conse- 
crated ; and we should never have survived the attempt to 
use any other. No man," it was added, " but a Thug, who 
has been a strangler, and is remarkable for his cleanliness and 
decorum, is permitted to carry it." 

The Thugs profess to believe that their system of murder and 
plunder was instituted by Kalee, the goddess whom they serve, 
and is, consequently, of divine origin. This they attempt to 
prove by the following legend : — 

In remote ages, a demon infested the earth, and devoured man- 
kind as soon as created. This devouring monster was so gigan- 
tic, that the water did not reach his waist in the unfathomable 
parts of the ocean ; and he strode over the world unrestrained, 
rioting in the destruction of the human race. The world was 
thus kept unpeopled, until the goddess of the Thugs came to the 
rescue. She attacked the demon, and cut him down ; but from 
every drop of his blood another demon arose ; and though the 
goddess continued to cut down these rising demons with won- 
derful alacrity and scientific skill, other demons sprang from 
their blood, and the diabolical race consequently multiplied with 
fearful rapidity. The never-ending labor of cutting down de- 
mons, whose u umber was only increased by this operation, at 
length fatigued and disheartened the goddess. She found it 
indispensably necessary to make a change in her tactics ; — and 
here the tale, which is thus far universally received, becomes 
subject to variations. It is admitted by all Hindoos, that the 
demons multiplied in the manner described ; but there is a dif- 
ference of opinion respecting the manner in which they were 
finally disposed of The orthodox opinion is that, when the 
goddess found the drops of blood thus rapidly passing into de- 
mons, — a fact which, with all her divine attributes, it seems, 
she only learned by experience, — she hit upon a very happy 
expedient to prevent the blood reaching the earth, where the 
demoniacal transformation took place. Being furnished with 
a tongue of extraordinary dimensions, she, after every blow, 
promptly and carefully licked the blood away ! A preventive 
check being thus placed upon the further propagation of demons, 
the goddess was enabled to destroy, at her leisure, those previ- 

3 



18 HABITS AND SUPERSTlTlONg 

ously existing. Such is the commonly received account of the 
goddess's dexterity and address. That of the Thugs is varied, 
for the purpose of affording a superhuman sanction to their mode 
of assassination. According to Tiiug mythology, the goddess, 
when she became embarrassed by the constant reenforcements 
of the demon army which accrued from her labors, relinquished 
all personal efforts for their suppression, and formed two men 
from the perspiration brushed from her arms. To each of these 
men she gave a handkerchief ; how fabricated, at a time when 
reels and looms were not, is a question open to the discussion of 
the learned. With these handkerchiefs they were commanded 
to put all the demons to death, without shedding a drop of blood. 
It does not appear why the goddess might not thus have plied 
the handkerchief herself : it may be presumed that she was too 
much exhausted by her previous exertions. Her commands, 
however, were faithfully executed; and the demons were all 
strangled without delay. 

There is some difficulty in understanding how demons so pow- 
erful succumbed thus readily to two agents, who, though sprung 
from an exudation of the goddess's arms, were, as appears by 
the sequel of the tale, merely children of mortality. But the 
difficulty never seems to have occurred to the Thugs, whose 
faith, like that of the mass of their countrymen, is of a very un- 
scrupulous character. The story is wound up with such poet- 
ical justice as might be expected in a Hindoo legend. The 
champions, having vanquished all the demons, offered, like hon- 
est men, to return the handkerchiefs ; but their patroness, in the 
sp^'-"t of a grateful goddess, desired that they would retain them, 
not merely as memorials of their heroism, but as the implements 
of a lucrative trade in .which their descendants were to labor 
and thrive. They were not only permitted, but commanded, to 
strangle men, as they had strangled demons. They forbore, 
indeed, to exercise this privilege for a long period, and several 
generations passed before Thuggee became practised as a profes- 
sion. Whether this forbearance was founded on the principle 
according to which a sportsman suffers game to accumulate, is 
not stated. The privilege slept ; but, though dormant, it was not 
lost ; and in due time it was abundantly exercised. The lapse 
between the grant of the patent and the use of it might 
tend to raise a presumption against its having been granted; 
but Hindoo casuists are not accustomed to scrutinize evidence 
with the severity which prevails in Westminster Hall. 



OF THE THUGS. 



19 





^^^ 


m"^ 


II 


■1^ 


K^ 


fmm 


Hill viiW'i 


I^H 




■vil 


^^^^ 


4 m 


9 


^^^s& 


\^M 


^9 




S^^9 



The convic- 
tion of the divine 
origin of Thug- 
gee is strength- 
ened in the minds 
of its followers 
by the belief that 
its mysteries are 
exhibited by the 
numerous im- 
ages sculptured 
on the walls of 
the cave temples 
at Ellora. On this 

1 • . -^ , Interior of a Cave Temple at Ellora. 

following conversation of Captain Sleeman, in the employment 
of the East India Company, and some Thugs who had become 
witnesses for the prosecution instituted against their confed- 
erates. 

Capt. S. You told Mr. Johnstone, the traveller, while he was 
at Sanger, that the operations of your trade were to be seen in 
the caves of Ellora. 

Feringeea. All ! Every one of the operations is to be seen 
there. In one place, you see men strangling ; in another, bury- 
ing the bodies ; in another, carrying them off to the graves. 
There is not an operation in Thuggee that is not exhibited in 
the caves of Ellora. 

Dorgha. In those caves are to be seen the operations of 
every trade in the world. 

Chotee. Whenever we passed near, we used to go and see 
these caves. Every man will there find his trade described, 
however secret he may think it ; and they were all made in 
one night. 

Capt. S. Does any person besides yourselves consider that 
any of these figures represent Thugs? 

Feringeea. Nobody else. But all Thugs know that they do. 
We never told any body else what we thought about them. 
Every body there can see the secret operations of his trade ; 
but he does not tell others of them ; and no other person can 
understand what they mean. They are the works of God. No 
human hands were employed upon them ; that every body 
admits. 



20 HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

Capt. S. What particular operations are there represented 
by the sculptures ? 

Sahib Khan. I have seen the sotha, (inveigler,) sitting upon 
the same carpet with the traveller, and in close conversation 
with him, just as we are when we are worming out their secrets. 
In another place, the strangler has got his roomal over his neck, 
and is strangling him ; while another, the chumochee, is hold- 
ing him by the legs. These are the only two operations that I 
have seen represented. 

Nasir. These I have also seen ; and there is no mistaking 
them. The chumochee has close hold of the legs, and is pulling 
at them, thus; while the bhurtote is tightening the roomal 
round his neck, thus ! 

Capt. S. Have you seen no others ? 

Feringeea. I have seen these two ; and also the lughas car- 
rying away the bodies to the grave, in this manner, and the sex- 
tons digging the grave with the sacred pickaxe. All is done 
just as if we had ourselves done it : nothing could be more 
exact. 

Capt. S. And who do you think could have executed this 
work ? 

Feringeea. It could not have been done by Thugs, because 
they would never have exposed the secret of their trade ; and 
no other human being could have done it. It must be the 
work of the gods ; human hands could never have performed it. 

Capt. S. And, supposing so, you go and worship it ? 

Sahih Khan. No. We go to gratify curiosity, and not to 
worship. We look upon it as a mausoleum, a collection of curi- 
ous figures cut by some demons, who knew the secrets of all 
mankind, and amused themselves here in describing them. 

The high office of a strangler is not attained until after a 
novitiate of considerable length. When the disciple has been 
sufficiently prepared, or at least when he believes that the con- 
quest of natural feeling is so far complete as to enable him to 
perform, without shrinking, that which he has learned to con- 
template without horror, he applies to one of the most experi- 
enced and respected of the gang to become his gooroo. This 
word appears to be derived from the goor, or coarse sugar, 
which forms an important ingredient in the ceremonies of initia- 
tion ; and the office of the person honored with this title is, to 
introduce the aspirant to the actual exercise of his profession ; 
to instruct him in the science of hangmanship ; and to preside 



OF THE THUGS. 21 

over the rites by which the pupil is to be consecrated to his dia- 
boUcal work. Precautions are taken that the young beginner 
may not be embarrassed by difficuUies. A victim is selected, 
for his first essay in guilt, whose strength is below the average ; 
and the chosen period of operation is at the moment when the 
senses of the traveller are bewildered by being suddenly roused 
from sleep. While the latter is reposing himself, the prepara- 
tion takes place. The gooroo takes the pupil into a field, ac- 
companied by three or four of the older members of the gang, 
and the ceremonies commence by the whole party facing in the 
direction in which they intend to move. The gooroo then pro- 
ceeds to take the auspices; and, having invoked a favorable sign 
from the goddess, half an hour is allowed for the fulfilment of 
their wishes. If in the course of that time the required sign is 
obtained, all is well, and the goddess is believed to regard the 
attempt of the young Thug with benignity ; but if no sign is ob- 
tained, or if it is of an unfavorable nature, the ambition of the 
novice is for that time disappointed, and the destined victim 
must fall by hands already practised in the murderous work. 

If the sanction of the goddess be indicated, the group retire, 
in high spirits, to the place where the sleeping traveller awaits 
his death. The gooroo then, turning to the west, takes a hand- 
kerchief, and ties at one end a knot, in which he encloses a 
rupee. This knot is of a peculiar description, and the privilege 
of tying it confined to those who have been regularly intro- 
duced to their occupation. The clumsy intruder, who has not 
participated in the advantages derived from a regular appren- 
ticeship to the art, leaves the end of the roomal exposed : the 
more accomplished practitioner manifests his science and ele- 
gance by concealing the end within the knot. This is the mark 
of his regular induction, and the ribbon of the order to which he 
has the honor to belong. 

The knot being duly tied by the gooroo, the roomal is deliv- 
ered to the incipient strangler, who receives it with all the rev- 
erence due to so precious a gift, bestowed by such venerated 
hands. The interest of the scene now increases. The execu- 
tioner, attended by a ghimigcea, or holder of hands, stands 
before his victim, whose tranquil state is but an emblem of that 
deeper sleep which is about to seal his eyes forever. His last 
earthly slumber is gradually interrupted ; the victim is roused 
for slaughter ; the fatal noose is cast over his npck by the hand 
of the youthful assassin, and, with the aid of the attendant ruf- 



22 HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

fian, the work is soon completed. One human being has passed 
into eternity ; another has taken the last step in guilt and 
infamy ! 

The horrible work is over ; and, so far from being actuated 
by any sensations of pity or remorse, the wretch, who has at- 
tested the strength of his nerves and the weakness of his moral 
perceptions, knows no feeling but that of delight, flowing from 
gratified ambition. To his instructor, guide, and priest, his grat- 
itude is boundless : he bows before his gooroo, and touches his 
feet with both hands, in token of the deepest and most afi'ection- 
ate respect. But his gratitude, if confined to the person of his 
preceptor, would be felt to be inadequate and niggardly. The 
relations and friends of the reverend man are entitled to share the 
warm feelings of the now accomplished assassin ; and to them 
he tenders the same homage which he has previously paid to his 
father in crime. 

A lucky omen is once more anxiously looked for ; and, as 
soon as it is afforded, the newly-admitted strangler opens the 
knot tied in the handkerchief by the hands of his tutor, and takes 
out the rupee which had been placed within it. This coin, with 
all the other silver which he has, the pupil presents to the precep- 
tor : the latter adds his own stock of money to the ofiering ; and, 
after setting apart one rupee and a quarter to the purchase of 
goor for the tapoonee, the remainder is expended in sweatmeats. 

The tapoonee is a solemn sacrifice performed after every 
murder. The goor is placed upon a blanket or sheet, spread 
upon a clean spot. On the cloth, near the goor, is deposited the 
consecrated pickaxe, and a piece of silver for an offering. The 
Thug whose reputation for professional learning stands the high- 
est, and who is supposed to enjoy the largest share of the favor 
of the goddess, also takes his place on the cloth, with his face 
to the west : the most accomplished and scientific stranglers are 
associated with him in this place of honor. The number of this 
select body must be an even one ; but its extent is limited only 
by the size of the cloth. Those of the higher grade who are 
unable to find accommodation among their brethren, and the 
vulgar herd who have no claim to distinction, arrange them- 
selves around the cloth which bears the sacrifice and those who 
preside over it. The leader then makes a hole in the ground, 
and, having poured into it a little of the goor, clasps his hands 
in the attitude of fervent devotion, and raising them, in harmony 
with his upturned eyes, to heaven, gives utterance to the follow- 



OF THE THUG3. 23 

ing prayer : " Great goddess ! as you vouchsafed one lac and 
sixty thousand rupees to Joora Naig and Koduck Bunwanee, in 
their need, so we pray thee fulfil our desires ! " The enumera- 
tion of the precise number of thousands bestowed by the god- 
dess upon her favorites is not very poetical ; but the petition is 
so entirely accordant with Thug feeling, that no doubt can be 
entertained as to the sincerity with which it is offered. All the 
assembled follo^vers repeat the prayer after the leader ; and the 
latter, after sprinkling water on the pit and pickaxe, puts a little 
of the goor upon the head of each Thug who has been so fortu- 
nate as to obtain a seat upon the carpet. The signal for stran- 
gling is now given, as if a murder were actually about to be com- 
mitted ; and the Thugs, who have received the portions of goor, 
eat them in solemn silence. The most perfect stillness prevails, 
till these privileged persons have swallowed the precious mor- 
sels distributed to them, and diluted the repast by drinking 
some water. The goor is now given to all whose rank entitles 
them to partake of it ; the greatest care being taken that no part 
shall fall to the ground. Should such an accident happen, the 
fallen fragments are carefully collected, and deposited in the pit. 
The misfortune is thus alleviated, so far as human prudence can 
avail, by preserving the hapless relics of the sugar, consecrated 
to murder, from contamination by the foot of man. 

The sacred goor is not imparted to all Thugs indiscriminate- 
ly : two conditions are necessary, to qualify them for a share of 
it. The participant must be in a state of freedom, servitude 
barring his admission to the privilege : the only remaining dis- 
qualification is found in innocence of murder. None but the prac- 
tical assassin can be allowed to partake of the sacred goor ; no 
one, but he whose hands have performed the office of strangling, 
is thought worthy of the food which derives its sanctity from 
the prayers of stranglers. For those who cannot boast the name 
of freemen, or whom youth, fear, or ill-fortune has withheld from 
performing, on any of their fellow-men, the honorable act of 
strangulation, some sugar is set apart, before it acquires its holy 
character. This the excluded eat, at the time when their more 
favored associates partake of that portion which has been sanc- 
tified. The sweetmeats which have been provided are distrib- 
uted among the gang generally. 

The expedition being closed, and the members of the commu- 
nity having retired to their quarters, the happy individual, who 
has passed from a state of pupilage into the maturity of a praC' 



24 



HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 



tised assassin, entertains his gooroo at a feast as magnificent as 
his circumstances will afford. If he have the means of defray- 
ing the expense, not only the immediate members of the goo- 
roo's family, but all his relatives, are invited, and the grateful 
murderer equips his tutor, from head to foot, with a complete 
array of new vestments. The same compliment is paid to the 
gooroo's lady, and sometimes to all his relatives. Soon after 
this feast, the gooroo invites his pupil to an entertainment. The 
connection between them is henceforward indissoluble ; and the 
most intimate and sacred relations of nature are considered as 
nothing, in comparison with it. A Thug will rather betray his 
father than the gooroo by whom he has been introduced to the 
honors of his profession. 




Ji Thug riding in a Palanquin to a Feast 'prepared by his Gooroo. 

The dignity and sanctity with which murder is invested by 
the creed of the Thugs afford lamentable proof of the inseparable 
connection subsisting between the corruption of religion and the 
corruption of morals. To obliterate all religious feeling from 
the heart of man is a difficult, if not an impossible task ; to sub- 
stitute superstitious belief for reasonable faith is, unhappily, a 
very easy one ; and sound morals invariably disappear with 
sound religion. Indeed, between false religion and false morals 
there is a mutual action and reaction. The wayward desires 
of man lead him to indulge in that which true religion forbids : 
he therefore seeks shelter in a false one. Again ; superstition 
sanctions, and even commands, practices against which pure 
morality revolts : hence the moral judgment is depraved, the 
restraints of conscience abolished, and that feeling which should 
conduct men to all that is good, and pure, and excellent, be- 
comes the pilot to every vice, and the prompter of the most 
horrible crimes. 



OF THE THUGS. 



25 



The effect of the consecrated sugar, or goor, is believed to be 
irresistible. Captain Sleeman, having reproached some of the 
fraternity" on account of a murder marked by many ferocious 
and unmanly features, one of the party replied, " We all feel 
pity sometimes ; but the goor of the taponee changes our na- 
ture : it would change the nature of a horse. Let any man 
once taste of that goor, and he will be a Thug, though he know 
jail the trades, and have all the wealth, in the world. I never 
wanted food. My mother's family was opulent ; her relations 
high in office. I have been high in office myself, and became 
so great a favorite, wherever I went, that I was sure of promo- 
tion ; yet I was always miserable when absent from my gang, 
and obliged to return to Thuggee. My father made me taste of 
that fatal goor when I was yet a mere boy ; and if I were to 
live a thousand years, I should nevor be able to follow any other 
trade." 




A Mahometan at Prayer. 



The superstitions of the Thugs are all of Hindoo origin ; yet 
Mahometans adopt them with a belief equally implicit, and a 
devotion equally ardent. They pay divine honors to Kalee, ths 



26 HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

impersonation of destruction, which, in the eyes of all sound 
Mahometans, must be idolatry — a crime severely denounced in 
the Koran, and held by all good Mussulmans in abhorrence. 

Their mode of escaping the difficulties in which they are in- 
volved, by the inconsistency of their creed with their practice, is 
illustrated by a conversation held by Captain Sleeman with some 
Mahometan Thugs. 

Capt. S. Has Bho wanee been any where named in the Koran ? 

Sahib. Nowhere. 

" Here," (says Captain Sleeman,) " a Mussulman Thug 
interposed, and said he thought Bhowanee, and Fatima, the 
daughter of Mahomet, were one and the same person; and 
that it was Fatima who invented the use of the roomal, to 
strangle the great demon Rukut-beejdana. This led to a dis- 
cussion between him and some of my Mussulman native officers, 
who did not like to find the amiable Fatima made a goddess of 
Thuggee." 

Capt. S. Then has Bhowanee any thing to do with your 
Paradise ? 

Sahib. Nothing. 

Capt. S. She has no influence upon your future state ? 

Sahib. None. 

Capt. S. Does Mahomet, your prophet, any where sanc- 
tion crimes like yours ; — the murder in cold blood of your fel- 
low-creatures, for the sake of their money ? 

Sahib. No. 

Capt. S. Does he not say that such crimes will be punished 
by God in the next world ? 

Sahib. Yes. 

Capt. S. Then do you never feel any dread of punishment 
hereafter ? 

Sahib. Never. We never murder unless the omens are 
favorable ; and we consider favorable omens as the mandates of 
the deity. 

Capt. S. What deity ? 

Sahib. Bhowanee. 

Capt. S. But Bhowanee, you say, has no influence upon 
the welfare, or otherwise, of your soul hereafter. 

Sahib. None, we believe ; but she influences our fates in 
this world : and what she orders, in this world, we believe that 
God will not punish in the next. 

The conjoint adoration of the deities of diflerent and discord- 



OP THE THUGS. 



27 



ant creeds is neither new nor uncommon in the East. In the Old 
Testament many instances are recorded, in which nations, as 
■well as individuals, paid a divided homage to the true God and 
to a multiplicity of idols ; and, in various parts of India, the Ma- 
hometans, from having long been surrounded by a Hindoo popu- 
lation, have been led to adopt many of their opinions and prac- 
tices. 




Indru, King of the minor Deities. 

In another interview, one of the Thug witnesses was asked — 

Capt. Sleeman. And do you never feel sympathy for the 
persons murdered, — never pity or compunction ? 

Sahib. Never. 

Capt. S. How can you murder old men and young children 
without some emotions of pity, — calmly and deliberately, as 
they sit with you, and converse with you, and tell you of their 

private affairs ? 

Sahib. From the time that the omens have been favorable, 



'2S HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 

we consider them as victims thrown into our hands by the deity, 
to be killed, and that we are the mere instrument in her hands 
to destroy them ; that if we do not kill them, she will never be 
again propitious to us, and we and our families will be involved 
in misery and want. 

Capt. S. And you can sleep as soundly, by the bodies or 
over the graves of those you have murdered, and eat your meals 
with as much appetite, as ever ? 

Sahib. Just the same. We sleep and eat just the same, unless 
we are afraid of being discovered. 

Capt. S. And when you see or hear a bad omen, you think 
it is the order of the deity not to kill the travellers you have 
with you, or are in pursuit of? 

Sahib. Yes : it is the order not to kill them, and we dare 
not disobey. 

Some Thugs let very poor travellers escape, in hope of find- 
ing better game : others regard forbearance, in such a case, as an 
act of abominable impiety. A further extract will show the 
respective views of these conflicting sects, and the reasoning by 
which they are supported. 

Capt. S. When you have a poor traveller with you, or a 
party of travellers who appear to have little property about them, 
and you hear or see a very good omen, do you not let them 
go, in the hope that the return of the omen will guide you to 
better prey ? 

Dorgha, (Mussulman.) Let them go? Never, never ! 

Nasi?', (Mussulman of Telingana.) How could we let them 
go ? Is not the good omen the order from Heaven to kill them ? 
and would it not be disobedience to let them go ? If we did not 
kill them, should we ever get any more travellers? 

Feri7igeea, (Brahman.) I have known the experiment tried 
with good eflect. I have known travellers, who promised little, 
let go ; and the virtue of the omen brought better. 

Inaent, (Mussulman.) Yes ; the virtue of the omen remains ; 
and the traveller who has little should be let go ; for you are 
sure to get a better. 

Sahib Khan^ (of Telingana.) Never, never! This is one 
of your Hindoostanee heresies. You could never let him go, 
without losing all the fruits of your expedition. You might get 
property, but it would never do you any good. No success 
could result from your disobedience. 

Morlee, (Rajpoot.) Certainly not. The travellers who are in 



OF THE THUGS. 29 

our hands, when we have a good omen, must never be let go, 
whether they promise little or much. The omen is unquestion- 
ably the order, as Nasir says. 

Nasir. The idea of securing the good-will of Davy by dis- 
obeying her order is quite monstrous. We Deccan Thugs do 
not understand how you got hold of it. Our ancestors never 
were guilty of such folly. 

Feringeea. You do not mean to say, that we of Murnae and 
Sindouse were not as well instructed as you of Telingana ? 

Nasir and Sahib Khan. We only mean to say, that you 
have clearly mistaken the nature of a good omen in this case. 
It is the order of Davy to take what she has put in our way ; 
at least, so we in the Deccan- understand it. 

So long as the Thugs were faithful to their Kalee, — so long 
as they attended to all the rites, the ceremonies, and offerings, by 
which they rendered to her worship and honor, — so long as the 
order remained pure, and was not contaminated by the low and 
disreputable castes who never fail to infect those with whom 
they are associated, — so long they prospered in their profession, 
and so long did they enjoy the favor atid the protection of their 
deity. But now, in consequence of these corruptions, they have 
fallen under her displeasure, and their system is likely to be 
exploded. 

In obedience to the supposed commands of Kalee, the traveller 
was arrested on his journey ; the ascetic was strangled on his 
road to Juggernaut ; the young, sometimes, have had their brains 
dashed out against a stone, and the old have had no mercy 
shown to them on account of their infirmities ; the beautiful 
female has been treated with the sam.e ferocious cruelty as the bold 
and daring ; the wealthy merchant has lost his life, as well as his 
gains and his riches ; and the rajah, equipped for his journey, 
attended by his friends, his servants, and his train of followers, 
accompanied by his elephants, his horses, his camels, his oxen, 
and all the paraphernalia of Eastern grandeur, has, with all his 
attendants, been murdered in a moment. The kindness of 
friendship, the ckims of hospitality, the interchange of social 
intercourse, the solemn promise, vows of protection to the 
young, the infirm, and the lovely, — were, by these cruel murder- 
ers, entirely disregarded; and when a kind host has been enter- 
taining them at his table, and reposing his confidence in their 
brotherly regard, many of his guests have been engaged, outside 
the tent, in preparing his tomb, and have given liim and his 
relatives a sepulchre, as a reward for his entertainment. 



30 



HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS 




Returning from a sacrifice of animals at a Temple of Kale^ 



OP THE THUGS. 31 

A Thug leader, possessed of most polished manners and 
great eloquence, being asked by a native whether he never felt 
compunction in murdering innocent people, answered, with a 
smile, " Does any man feel compunction in following his trade ? 
and are not all our trades assigned us by Providence ? " The 
native gentleman said, " How many people have you, in the 
course of your life, killed with your own hands, at a rough 
guess ? " "I have killed none ! " " Have you not been just 
describing to me a number of murders?" "Yes; but do you 
suppose I could have committed them ? Is any man killed from 
man's killing ? Admeeke marne se koee murta. Is it not the 
hand of God that kills him ? and are we not mere instruments 
in the hand of God ? " 

Fatalism is a prominent dogma of the creed of the Thugs ; 
and they consider themselves, in the exercise of their trade, to 
be entirely exempt from moral responsibility. Yet, in the 
attention to omens, or in the neglect of these instructions, they 
strangely enough appear to regard themselves as free agents, who 
may expect reward for obedience and punishment for disobedi- 
ence. In their view, to commit murder is inevitable, and a matter 
of necessity : to murder according to rule is an act of choice j 
and to choose aright is meritorious. 

How. it may well be asked, could such a fraternity grow up 
in Hindoostan, and be permitted to carry on their depredations 
for so many ages ? But the same religion that allowed the 
mother to strangle her infant, that suffered the Brahmans to offer 
up their human sacrifices, that commanded the helpless female 
to mount the funeral pile, that encouraged the devotee to throw 
himself under the wheels of Juggernaut, patronized the Thugs 
in their assassinations, and gave them the license of plunder at 
their will. What class i^i the community, then, could dispute 
their right, or question their authority ? Many of the native 
rajahs had licensed the infamous system ; a certain tax was 
levied upon every house which was known to be inhabited by a 
Thug ; and, under the sanction of the law and the government, 
the assassin was permitted to carry on his atrocious deeds 
throughout the country. Nay, such was the encouragement 
these murderers received, and so useful were they to the public 
treasury, that, when the British government resolved to put them 
down, and applied to the independent princes to cooperate with 
it in accomplishing this object, the rajah of Joudpoor contended 
that he had a right to protect the Thugs, and refused to give up 



d» HABITS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE THUGS. 

those who had taken refuge in his territory ; and had it not been 
for the firmness of Lord William Bentinck, who ordered an army 
to assemble on the frontier of his dominions, and showed him that 
it was impossible the Joudpoor province should become the ren- 
dezvous of a banditti who would commit their depredations 
with impunity upon the other states of the empire, the system 
would have flourished, under such protection, to this day. 




SPECIMENS 



OF 



THE SHASTERS 



SACRED BOOKS OF THE BRAHMINS ; 



CONSISTING OF 



SONGS, LEGENDARY TALES, ETC., 



WRITTEN 3000 YEARS AGO. 




PUBLISHED BY CALEB WRIGHT. 



DESCEIPTION OF THE SHASTERS. 

By J. J. WEITBRECHT, 
FOR MANY YEARS A RESIDENT IN INDIA. 



A LEARNED Brahmin, on being asked how many volumes their 
Shasters contained, replied, " Who is able to calculate that ? No 
man can number them ; the palace of the Rajah of Burdwan 
would not contain them ; they are like the ocean, unfathomable, 
without measure, and without end." 

That celebrated searcher into Hindu mythology. Sir William 
Jones, appeared to coincide in the same view, when, in astonish- 
ment and surprise, he exclaimed, " To whatever part of this 
literature we may direct our attention, we are every where struck 
with the thought of infinity." The Iliad of Homer numbers 
twenty-four thousand verses, but the Mahabharat of the Hindus 
four hundred thousand ; and the Purannas, comprehending only 
a small portion of their religious books, extend to two millions of 
verses. 

The Hindus divide the voluminous masses of their Shasters 
into eighteen parts, asserting that they contain eighteen distinct 
kinds of knowledge. To the first class belong the Four Vedas. 
The Brahmins believe these to be as old as eternity. They also 
assert that they were communicated to mankind, not through the 
medium of a mortal, but by the mouth of Brahma himself. 

The Vedas consist of a compilation of prayers, called 3Iun- 
irus ; and, at a later period, a collection of doctrines and precepts, 
which are called Brahmanas^ was added. They detail an endless 
number of ceremonies which are to be performed by the priest, 
the ascetic, and the hermit, at their religious services. 

One of the oldest sages of Hindu antiquity collected the 
Brahmanas, or religious statutes from the Vedas, into special 
tracts, with the title of Upanishads. This compilation is a kind 
of compendium of Hindu theology, generally known under the 
appellation of Vedanta. 



4 DESCRIPTION OF THE SHASTER3. 

There have been men, professed Christians, who have spoken 
with enthusiastic admiration of the Hindu writings. Their primi- 
tive rehgion, it has been said, contained the most sublime doc- 
trines, and inculcated the most pure morality. But this is an 
egregious delusion. " Many an object appears beautiful when 
seen at a distance, and through a mist ; but, when you approach 
it nearer, you will smile at the deception. As you become more 
intimately acquainted with the Shasters, you must feel struck 
with the absurd character of their doctrines, and the laxity of 
their morals." 

The second class of sacred books treat on the art of healing, 
music, war, architecture, and sixty-four various mechanical arts. 
Hence you perceive the Shasters of the Hindus teach not merely 
religion, but every kind of science and knowledge. By far the 
most numerous class of Shasters is comprehended in the poetical 
works of the Purannas, treating on the creation of the world, 
the power and attributes of the gods, the incarnations of Vishnu, 
&c. Among the most interesting of these may be numbered the 
Mahabharat and Bhagavat Gita. The latter contains a description 
of Krishna's life. The Ramayun, an epic poem, gives a history 
of Ram, an incarnation of Vishnu. The historical details afford 
remarkable specimens of the ancient history of Hindustan. In 
the preface of the Ramayun it is stated, " He who constantly 
hears and sings this poem will obtain the highest bliss, and will 
become like the gods." 

Besides these, there is an endless mass of writings, counted 
sacred, namely, the Nyay Shasters, the Smritis, the Mimangsa, 
of philosophical, juristical, and metaphysical tendency. 

The age of the Vedas has never been ascertained with any 
degree of certainty. Some enthusiastic admirers of them put 
them far before the time of the deluge. A learned professor in 
America actually requested Sir W. Jones to search among the 
Hindus for the Adamic books. The amazing credulity of skeptics 
and unbelievers, in every thing except the records of the Sacred 
Scriptures, is notorious. The latter gentleman, who is regarded 
as one of the most profound scholars in Hindu antiquity, con- 
cluded, from internal and external evidence, the age of the Vedas 
to be about three thousand years ; accordingly, they stand in 
antiquity nearest to the books of Moses. All the other Sanscrit 
writings are of more recent date. 

After this cursory glance into the impenetrable chaos of Hindu 
Shasters, we proceed a step farther. The question we have now 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SHASTERS. 6 

to consider is this : What vieio has the Brahmin of a Divine 
Being 1 and we shall be sadly mistaken if we expect to find in 
the Hindu Shasters a confession of faith laid down which the 
learned unifoimly acknowledge as the groundwork of their 
belief 

As a north-wester hurricane in Bengal, after a glowing, fiery, 
hot day, mingles clouds with dust, leaves, wood, and earth, in 
its destructive course, so we find in the wild confusion of the 
Shasters all the nobler divine thoughts, and purer ideas of the 
majesty of God, interwoven and mixed up with the most puerile 
nonsense. You cannot lay your hand on one point of doctrine, 
which is not in conflict with another, or denied by some rival 
system. 

The Hindu, however, acknowledges one Supreme Being as 
the ground and foundation of his religion. " Ek Brumho, dit- 
tyo nashti," — One God, and beside him no other, — this sentence 
is become a proverb, and is in the mouth of every Brahmin. 
His writings dignify this supreme and eternal Being with the 
title " Brahm," which is to be carefully distinguished from 
Brahma, an emanation of the former, and the first person in the 
Hindu trinity. The Shasters describe Brahm as a being without 
beginning and without end, almighty, omniscient, unchangeable ; 
in short, as being possessed of all the divine attributes, as the 
sublimest conceptions of the Holy Scriptures describe Jehovah. 
This being, however, all spirit and without form, is devoid of 
qualities. The Shasters declare that the very idea of allowing 
attributes in Brahm renders a multiplication of him a necessary 
consequence. For this very reason, the Brahmin will not allow 
the God of the Bible, because to him it appears impossible and 
irrational to believe that spirit can act and create without being 
united with matter. 

Brahm is therefore represented without mind, without will, 
without consciousness of his existence. No wonder that many 
Hindus, in going one step farther, declare the Supreme is noth- 
ing ; for a spirit without power and energy is like a thing of 
nought. Nevertheless, it is asserted, on the other hand, that he 
enjoys the highest beatitude, — it is the bliss of a deep, uninter- 
rupted sleep. 

Brahm, however, must one day have awaked from his long 
sleep ; or, in other words, the negative character of his existence 
must have changed into the positive. This was necessary for 
calling the world into existence. On this important point, the 



6 DESCRIPTION OF THE SHASTERS. 

different philosophical systems, headed by their respective lead- 
ers, have carried on a never-ceasing warfare. 

Brahm awoke, say the Vedas, and, feeling desire arising, said. 
" I^et me be many." Forthwith he took upon himself a material 
form ; and henceforth he is like a spider, sitting in the centre, 
spinning out his interminable threads, and fastening what he pro- 
duces from himself to the right and, left, towards all quarters of 
the infinite vacuum. 

Here, then, the shell of Hinduism begins to open ; the creation 
of the world, according to its teaching, is nothing more or less 
than a manifestation of Brahm in visible material forms. It is the 
most perfect system of pantheism. The cosmogony of the 
Shasters runs thus : All the germs or seed corns of the world 
that was to come into existence were condensed in the shape of 
an egg, and the supreme took possession of it in the form of 
Brahma. One year of the creation, or one thousand jugs, which, 
according to our reckoning, makes three hundred millions of 
common years, elapsed before the egg was hatched. During that 
long period, it was swimming like a bubble upon the mighty 
deep or chaos ; its brightness resembled that of a thousand suns. 
At last it broke, and Brahma sprang forth. His appearance was 
terrific ; he had a thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a 
thousand arms — a suitable complement to undertake the work ol 
creation. Another monstrous being escaped from the egg with 
him, evidently signifying the crude materials from which the 
great mundane machine was to be prepared. The hairs of this 
monster were the trees and plants of the forests, his head the 
clouds, his beard the lightning, his breath the atmosphere, his 
voice the thunder, his eyes the sun and moon, his nails the 
rocks, his bones the mountains of the earth. When the egg was, 
fabricated, Brahm, as creator, retired from the scene ; and hence- 
forth he troubled himself no longer with the concerns of the 
world. He relapsed into his former sleep, and nothing will dis- 
turb him in his dreams until the time when the dissolution of the 
present universe is to awaken him to renewed activity. 

No temple in India is consecrated to this "unknown God." 
The reason of this is obvious : the Hindu expects nothing, fears 
nothing, hopes nothing from a god who is asleep, wrapped up in 
sweet dreams, and who has communicated his power to those 
who are now managing the government of the world as his dele- 
gates. 

When the great egg opened, it brought forth, likewise, the three 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SHASTERS. J 

worlds, viz., the uppermost, which is inhabited by the gods, the 
middle, intended for the dwelling-place of man, and the infernal 
world, destined to be the habitation of demons and all sorts of 
fearful beings. 

The earth, according to the description of the Shasters, is a flat 
plain of circular form, resembling the water-lily, measuring four 
hundred millions of miles in circumference. The inhabitable 
part of it consists of seven islands of similar shape, each of which 
is surrounded by an ocean. The innermost island, bounded by 
the ocean of salt water, is called Jmnpadioip ; the second island is 
surrounded by a sea consisting of the juice of the sugar-cane ; 
the sea surrounding the third contains spirituous liquors ; the 
fourth, clarified butter ; the fifth, sour milk ; the sixth, sweet 
milk ; and the seventh contains sweet water. Beyond the latter 
there is a land of pure gold, but inaccessible to man ; and far 
beyond it extends the land of darkness and the hell. The earth 
is resting upon an enormous snake with a hundred heads, and 
the snake upon a tortoise. Whenever the former shakes one of 
his heads, an earthquake is caused thereby. The bigoted 
Brahmin is firmly persuaded of the indubitable fact, that no cir- 
cumnavigator of the globe has ever succeeded in passing beyond 
the salt-water ocean ; and let the English become ever so skilful 
in the art of navigation, they will always be obliged to sail with- 
in its confines. 

In the centre of the vast plain of the earth, which is two 
hundred and fifty thousand miles in diameter, the loftiest of all 
mountains, Suraeru, rises to the enormous height of more than two 
hundred thousand miles. It is crowned with three golden sum- 
mits, which are the favorite residences of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shi- 
va. The highest clouds reach to about a third part of the height of 
the mountain. At the foot of this mountain there are three small- 
er hills, placed like sentinels, on the top of each of which grows 
the mangoe-tree, above two thousand miles in height. These 
trees bear a fruit, as delicious as nectar, which measures several 
hundred feet in diameter. When it falls to the ground, juice ex- 
udes from it, whose spicy fragrance perfumes the air ; and those 
who eat thereof difl!"use a most agreeable smell for many miles 
around them. The rose-apple-tree is likewise growing on those 
hills, the fruit of which is as large as an elephant, and so full of 
juice that at the season of maturity it flows along in a stream, 
and whatever it touches in its course is changed into the purest 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SHASTERS. 



gold. Here is a specimen of geography, which surpasses all our 
preconceived and short-sighted notions of the globe we inhabit ! 

I mentioned above that the cosmogonies in the mythology of 
the Hindus are many. One of the most popular among them 
deserves to be noticed. The god Vishnu slept in the depth of 
the ocean. From him grew a water-lily, which swam on the 
surface of the water, and out of which proceeded Brahma, to 
whom the gods delivered the work of the creation of the uni- 
verse. In order to accomplish his purpose, he led for a long time 
the life of an ascetic. But he was unsuccessful. The disappoint- 
ment drove him into a rage, and the tears gushed from his eyes. 
Out of these briny drops arose gigantic beings of terrific shape. 
One of his deepest sighs over this sad catastrophe produced the 
god Rodru, that is, light and warmth, who, upon Brahma's 
request, undertook the continuation of the arduous task. But it 
did not proceed in his hands. Brahma was therefore obliged 
to resume it again ; and, after much anxiety, various beings issued 
from his fingers, ears, and other members. The work then ad- 
vanced with more success; and fire, earth, and wind, followed 
each other in quick succession. 

Upon this, Brahma divided himself into human forms, and 
created men ; then he assumed the shape of a bullock, and after- 
wards that of a horse, and thus produced the various kinds of 
four-footed animals, birds, &c. In this way the uncounted mul- 
titudes of animated beings, which now people the earth and other 
worlds, rose gradually into existence. 

Thus you see how the idea of pantheism pervades the base 
fiction of this very absurd and immoral history of the creation. 
To create is, in fact, nothing but a manifestation of Brahma in 
new forms ; he becomes an elephant, a mountain, a river ; and 
thus he produces and propagates the different species of living 
beings. The whole universe is a portion of himself. In this 
view he is represented in the Vedas : " Brahma is not separated 
from the creation : he is the light of the sun, of the moon, and 
of the fire ; the Vedas are the breath of his nostrils ; the primi- 
tive elements are his eyes ; the shaking movements of events are 
his laugh ; his sleep is the destruction of the world. In various 
forms he enlivens the creature : in the form of fire, he digests 
their nourishment ; in the form of air, he preserves their life ; as 
water, he quenches their thirst ; as the sun, he ripens the fruits ; as 
the moon, he gives them refreshing sleep. The progress of time 
is the step of his foot. Brahma hears and sees every thing. He 



10 DESCKIPTION OF THE SHASTERS. 

cultivates the field ; he is turned into a cloud to give it moisture ; 
he becomes corn and satisfies mankind. While he dwells in the 
body, he sustains its vital warmth ; if he withdraw, it will get 
cold and die. He destroys sin in the devout, as the cotton 
thread is singed in the fire. He is the source of all truth 
and of all lies. He who takes his refuge to him will become 
holy ; he who turns his face from him will become a blasphemer." 
Such is one of the most sublime songs which the priests sing in 
honor of their Creator. 

The distinction of caste is traced in its origin to the creation of 
man. By successive emanations from himself, Brahma called 
various classes of mankind into existence. First the Brahmin 
escaped from his mouth, as the representative of God in human 
form. The nature of his birth signified him to be, not only the 
highest and most exalted of all human beings, but likewise the 
intended teacher, and the mediator between the gods and man- 
kind. From the arm of Brahma, the defence of the body, sprung 
the Kshutryu, or the caste of warriors ; the object of whose crea- 
tion was evident, from the nature of his birth : he was to protect 
the people by his powerful arm, and to shield and defend his 
brethren against the aggression and oppression of the wicked. 
From Brahma's breast issued the Yoishnu, or caste of merchants 
and tradesmen, to provide for the necessities of mankind ; and 
from the humblest member, his foot, came the despised Sudra, or 
the servile caste. Their allotted task was to perform every kind 
of menial labor for their nobler-born brethren, both at home and in 
the field. 

The Sudras constitute by far the greatest number of the in- 
habitants of Bengal ; and probably it is the same in other parts of 
India. For thirty centuries past have those unhappy beings 
groaned under the curse of the haughty Brahmin, and patiently 
borne the intolerable burden. "What God has appointed," say 
they, " we cannot alter." So holy and unchangeable is this insti- 
tution of castes, in the eyes of the people, and so firm is the belief 
of the Hindu as to the appointment being of divine authority, 
that a transition from one caste to the other is absolutely impos- 
sible. A prince cannot purchase the Brahminical thread, which 
is the badge of their dignity, for millions. As a mouse can never 
be changed into an elephant, or the thorn-bush into an orange-tree, 
so neither can a Sudra be turned into a Brahmin. The Brahmin 
may sink : if he ofl"end against his caste, his holiness will withdraw 
itself; he forfeits his nobility and is degraded. If he marry the 



DESCRIPTION OF THE SHASTERS. 11 

daughter of a Sudra, his progeny will be a sort of illegitimate 
caste. Accordingly, at the present day, Brahmins of the first, 
second, and third class, are met with in India. The purest and 
most honored are, of course, those who, both on the paternal and 
maternal side, have derived their descent from ancestors of pure 
blood. 

In modern times, however, the castes have been considerably 
intermixed with each other. The Kshutryus were nearly extir- 
pated, even before the country was conquered by the Mohamme- 
dans, because they resisted the dominion of the Brahmins. The 
Voishnus, or merchants' caste, is no longer found in Bengal, and 
it is believed that they have been amalgamated with, and lost 
among, the Sudras ; while these latter have, especially in Southern 
India, sunk down almost to a level with the brute creation. 

The laws of the Hindus are peculiarly calculated for the 
preservation of the power and authority of the priests. In the 
time when Hinduism was in its flower, the Brahmin could in no 
wise be touched. The prince dared not execute him, though he 
might have committed every possible crime. As flesh and blood 
are pervaded in him by divine holiness, his moral character must 
be judged by quite a diff"erent standard to that of the Sudra. A 
good action possesses with him a much higher value ; and the 
most hideous crime loses in his case a great deal of its heinous 
nature. When a Brahmin robbed his Sudra brother, he had to 
pay a fine in money ; but, when the latter was the offender, he 
had to be burned at the stake ; and, if he took a Brahmin by his 
beard, the law commanded his hands to be cut off. Yea, the 
revenge of this hateful priest pursued the poor wretch into the 
other world ; for, if a Sudra should meet him in an irreverential 
manner, he will after death become a tree ; and, should he venture 
to cast an angry glance at him, Yama, the god of the lower regions, 
will tear out his eyes ; or, if he beat the Brahmin but with a straw, 
he will in twenty transmigrations be born of impure beasts. 

India is, like Italy, a paradise for priests. All the oflferings 
which the Hindu presents to his gods fall, as a matter of course, 
to the Brahmin. He that feeds a number of them has the 
promise of all the blessedness of heaven. The dying Hindu, 
who leaves him in his will some of his goods and cattle, will, 
freed from sin, enter forthwith into Shiva's heaven. He who 
sells his cow will go to hell ; but, if he make it over to a Brah- 
min, he will go to heaven. He who presents him an umbrella 
will be protected against the injurious influence of the sun ; if 



12 SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

any one will give him a pair of shoes, his feet will not be 
bhstered on a journey ; and if a person honor him with gifts of 
aromatic spices, he will be preserved from offensive smells and 
exhalations all his days. 

The husbandman may not cultivate his field, — he may not put 
the sickle into the ripe corn, — without first giving the Brahmin his 
due. He is the first at court, and in attendance on the Rajah. 
In the most fertile parts of the country, in towns and villages, 
where the inhabitants are in comfortable circumstances. Brahmins 
are found in the greatest numbers. In the western parts of 
Bengal, where forests abound, and where the ground is less pro- 
ductive, they are but rarely seen ; they "love to eat the fat, and 
drink the sweet," and have taken good care to obtain both for 
their portion. 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

From the Shiva Puran, Part II. 

SUTA'S NARRATIVE. 

*' Hear, O Rishi ! * a most excellent and sin-destroying nar- 
rative, which I will relate as I heard it with other Rishis from 
Vyasa. Formerly there was a famous Rishi, named Gautama^ 
and his virtuous wife was named Ahalya ; with her he performed, 
during a thousand years, a rigorous tapas t in the southern coun- 
try, near the mountain Brahmadri. At this time a drought had 
desolated the country, and neither moisture nor rain had the 
earth experienced for a hundred years ; water there was not ; and 
ascetics, men, birds, and beasts, died every where. On beholding 
this lamentable stat^, Gautama, having reflected, performed for 
six months the severest mortifications in honor of Varuna ; at 
the termination of which the god appeared to him and thus 
said : ' I am propitiated by thee, O holy devotee ! Demand 
whatever boon thou wishest, and I will grant it.' Gautama then 
requested rain ; but Varuna . replied, ' How can I transgress 
the divine command ? Ask some other boon, which it may be 

* Saint. 

f K tapas is a course of severe penance, either to propitiate a divinity or for 
other purposes, and the advantage derived from it is always superhuman. 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 13 

in my power to bestow upon thee.' On hearing this, Gautama 
said, ' O god ! if thou art pleased with me, and willing to 
grant me a favor, I will request that which thou canst easily 
perform : cause, then, to appear a hermitage which shall surpass 
all others in beauty, and shaded from the sun by fragrant and 
fruit-bearing trees, where men and women by holy meditation 
shall be liberated from pain, sorrow, and anxiety ; and also, as 
thou art the lord of water, let it enjoy a perennial fountain.' 
Varuna replied, 'So be it ; ' and then, causing a pit to be filled 
with water, he thus said : ' This water shall remain unex- 
hausted, and thy name shall become celebrated by this reservoir 
becoming a place of pilgrimage.' Having thus spoken, Varuna 
disappeared. In this manner did Gautama obtain water, with 
which he performed in due manner the daily ceremonies. He 
sowed, also, rice for holy offerings, and watered it from this inex- 
haustible fountain ; and grain of various kinds, trees, flowers, 
and fruits adorned his hermitage. Thus the grove of Gautama 
became the loveliest on the terrestrial orb ; and there resorted 
ascetics, birds, and beasts, to live in happiness ; and there, 
likewise, holy men fixed their abode with their sons and disci- 
ples. In this grove none knew sorrow, and gladness alone pre- 
vailed. But listen to what afterwards happened. 

"On one day Gautama had sent his disciples to bring water; 
but, when they approached the fountain, some Brahmin women 
who were there prevented them, and scoflingly called out, 
' We are the wives of holy anchorets ; after we have filled our 
pitchers, you may then draw water.' The disciples returned, 
and mentioned this circumstance to the wife of Gautama ; 
and Ahalya, having consoled them, proceeded herself to the 
fountain, and, having drawn water, brought it to her husband. 
Thus she did daily ; and the other Brahmin women not only 
scoffed her, but at length went, and thus each falsely addressed her 
husband : ' My lord ! Ahalya daily taunts me and the other 
Brahmin women, and I have no other resource than thee. Vio- 
lence, falsehood, deceit, foolishness, covetousness, and inconsid- 
erateness, are the innate vices of women ; and, alas ! of what 
avail will holy meditation be to me if I suffer every day the 
reproaches of Ahalya ? ' Each husband, having heard these 
words, revolved them in his mind, and thought that they could 
not be true, and that they would be guilty of ingratitude if they 
noticed them. But their wicked wives every day reproached 
them for not affording them redress ; and at length, one day, as 



14 SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

they were passing through the grove, they overheard their wives 
making the same complaints to Gautama, and therefore believed 
that what they had said was true. The devotees, having then 
assembled together, began to consult respecting the manner in 
which they might resent this injury, so that their revenge might 
not appear to proceed from them ; and, after deliberation, deter- 
mined on invoking the assistance of Ganesha, They then pro- 
pitiated him with offerings of durwa, lotoses, and rice ; of 
vermilion, sandal-wood, and incense ; of rice-milk, cakes, and 
sweetmeats ; and with prostrations, prayers, and burnt-offerings. 
Well pleased, the god appeared and thus spoke : ' I am propi- 
tiated : say, what boon do you desire ? ' They replied, ' If thou 
art willing to grant us a favor, contrive to remove Gautama from 
his hermitage ; for, if we adopt any means for that purpose, we 
shall expose ourselves to censure.' Ganesha answered, ' To injure 
or destroy a man who is free from blame is not just ; and to return 
evil for good will be productive of sorrow, and not of benefit. 
Whoever performs holy meditation will obtain the happiest result ; 
but the injuring of another will destroy the advantages which 
would be derived from it. Gautama has given you gold, and you 
wish to return glass ; but that which is right ought to be per- 
formed,' Having heard these words, the devotees, from mental 
delusion, thus replied : 'Olord! we entreat thee to do what we 
have requested, as we desire no other favor.' Ganesha then 
said, ' Good cannot produce evil, nor evil good : from its very 
essence, evil must produce misery, and good happiness. Gautama 
will enjoy happiness from his holy meditation ; but sorrow alone 
can result from your present wish. But you are deluded by 
female fascination, and you cannot, therefore, discriminate 
between good and evil. I will, however, comply with your 
request ; though you will undoubtedly hereafter regret having 
made it.' Having thus spoken, Ganesha disappeared. 

" Gautama, unacquainted with the evil intentions of the devo- 
tees, joyfully performed each day the sacred ceremonies ; but one 
day, being in a field of rice and barley, Ganapati, having assumed 
the form of an extremely debilitated cow, appeared there trem- 
bling, and scarcely able to move, and began to eat the rice and 
barley. Observing this, the compassionate Gautama lifted a 
stalk of grass and struck the cow with it, in order to drive her 
away ; but scarcely was she touched with the stalk when she 
dropped on the ground, and immediately died, while all the 
devotees beheld what passed with looks of distress. The 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 15 

holy men and their lovely wives then exclaimed, ' Gautama ! 
what hast thou done ? ' Gautama, also, in amazement, thus 
addressed Ahalya : ' What an accident ! How can I have incurred 
the anger of the gods ? what shall I do ? where shall I go ? thus 
involved in the guilt of the murder of a cow ! ' The devotees at 
the same time thus reproached him : ' Alas ! holy Rishi ! of 
what avail has been thy knowledge ? Alas ! of what avail thy 
burnt-offering and thy strict performance of every ceremony ? ' 
In the same manner, their wives thus reproached the wife of 
Gautama : ' Alas ! Ahalya, of what avail have been thy wisdom, 
and the universal respect shown to thee ? Alas ! of what avail 
thy virtue and piety ? ' Thus they reviled Gautama and his 
wife, and then exclaimed to each other, ' Let us not look on the 
face of this slayer of a cow : whoever looks on his countenance 
will become equally guilty ; and whoever approaches his hermit- 
age, that man's offerings neither will fire nor the manes receive.' 
Thus reviling Gautama, they all threw stones at him. Gautama 
then exclaimed, ' Alas ! alas ! what shall I do ? I swear, O holy 
men ! that I will depart from this place.' Having thus spoken, 
he removed to a distant spot, and there erected a hermitage ; but 
as long as this sin, falsely imputed to him, remained unexpiated, 
he could perform no holy ceremony, and his wife continued ex- 
posed' to the insults of the other Brahmin women; and thus 
Gautama suffered the greatest misery. At length, after a short 
time, Gautama assembled the holy men, and thus addressed 
them : ' Have compassion on me, and acquaint me with the cere- 
monies by which my sin may be expiated ; for without instruc- 
tion no good act can be effected.' The Brahmins then consulted 
together respecting the penance which ought to be prescribed, 
while Gautama stood at a distance in an humble posture; and, 
after deliberation, they thus said : ' Sin can never be expiated 
except by suitable purification : for this purpose, therefore, do 
thou circumambulate the whole earth, and, on returning here, 
circumambulate a hundred times the mountain of Brahma, and 
thus thou wilt be purified; or make ablutions in the Ganges, and 
on its banks, having made ten millions of earthen lingams, 
worship the god whose symbol is the lingam, and then perambu- 
late the sacred mountain and bathe in the hundred holy pools. 
By these means thy sin will be expiated.' Having heard these 
words, Gautama first circumambulated the holy mountain ; and 
afterwards, as directed, formed the earthen lingams, in order that 
he might be restored to his pristine purity. He then, with 



16 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTER3. 



Ahalya, and his disciples, worshipped Shiva with the hoHest 
rites and most intense devotion. At length the lord of the 
mountain-born goddess descended from the summit of Kailasa 
and thus addressed him : ' Say, what boon dost thou desire ? ' 
On beholding that form divine, a sight of which is so difficult to 
be obtained, Gautama was filled with delight, and, having 
reverenced the mighty god with laudatory strains, requested that 
he would Uberate him from the guilt that he had incurred. Shiva 




Oautama, or Budh. 

replied, ' Happy art thou, O mighty Rishi ! and the fruit of all 
thy pious acts hast thou obtained, for thou art free from sin. 
Thou hast been deceived by these wicked men, for even the 
three worlds become purified by thy presence. How, then, canst 
tliou be polluted by an act committed by these evil-minded men, 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 17 

and who will suffer for it hereafter ? ' Shankara * then explained 
to him all their wickedness and ingratitude, and Gautama 
listened with astonishment ; and after Shankara had ceased 
speaking, he thus said : ' These Brahmins have done me the 
greatest favor, for, if it had not been for their act, I should not 
have enjoyed the felicity of beholding thee, O lord ! ' Pleased 
with these words, Shiva again expressed his satisfaction with the 
piety and devotion of Gautama, and desired him to ask a boon. 
Gautama replied that all he entreated was, that the Ganga [the 
River Ganges] might there appear, in order that he might purify 
himself in it. With this request Shiva complied ; and the conse-' 
quence was the establishment of the sacred place of pilgrimage at 
Trimbucka, on the Godavery." 

Gautama is the principal divinity of the Burmese. According 
to tradition, he was so offended with the Brahmins that he de- 
termined to separate himself from them and establish a new 
religion. 

From the Matsya Puran. 
A DELUGE. 

Suta, addressing the Sages : — " Formerly, there was a king- 
named Manu, distinguished by every virtue ; who, having re- 
signed his kingdom to his son, withdrew to a certain spot, and 
there, indifferent to pain and pleasure, performed the severest 
devotional penance for a hundred thousand years. At length 
Brahma appeared to him and said, ' Choose whatever boon thy 
mind desires.' The king, bowing to Brahma, thus replied: 
' From thee one most excellent boon I crave ; and wish that, 
when the pralaya takes place, I may be preserved from that 
destruction in which all things movable and immovable shall be 
involved.' ' So be it,' Brahma replied, and then disappeared : 
and the angels rained on the king from heaven a shower of 
flowers. 

'' Some time after, as near his hermitage he was offering water 
to the manes, a small fish came into his hands along with the 
water ; and the compassionate king, in order to preserve it, 
placed it in a small vessel. But in one night it increased sixteen 
inches in size, and exclaimed, ' Save me ! save me ! ' The king 

* Sfiankara is another name for Shiva. Some of the Hindu divinities have 
many names, and tliey are used interchangeably, to prevent repetition. 



18 Specimens of the sHasters. 

then successively threw it in a jar, a well, a lake, and a river ; 
but, in each night, the fish grew larger, and entreated a more 
roomy place of abode. At length the king threw it into the sea, 
when it immediately occupied with its bulk the whole ocean. 
Manu, then alarmed, exclaimed, ' What god art thou ? or canst 
thou be any other than Vasudeva, whose form has thus expanded 
to such immensity? I know thee now ; but why hast thou thus 
pained me, by assuming the form of a fish, O Keshava ! Praise 
be to thee, O Vishnu, lord of the universe ! ' The lord replied, 
' Excellent ! excellent ! Thou hast discovered the truth, O 
sinless one ! Know that in a short time this earth shall be sub- 
merged in water, and that this ship has been prepared by all the 
gods for thy preservation. When, therefore, the deluge takes 
place, enter this ship, and take with thee all kinds of seeds, and 
of animals that are produced from heat, from eggs, or from the 
womb ; and fasten it to this horn of mine. Thus shalt thou be 
preserved, and after the deluge has ceased, shalt thou become, 
on the renovation of the world, the progenitor of all beings ; and 
thus shall a holy devotee, steadfast in ascetic practices, and com- 
pletely conversant in divine knowledge, become, at the beginning 
of the Krita Yug, the lord of a manwantara.' Having thus 
spoken, the lord disappeared, and Manu continued his devotions 
to Yasudeva until the deluge took place, as foretold by Vishnu ; 
and then Janardana appeared in the form of a horned fish ; and, 
while the ship into which Manu had entered was attached to its 
horn, Vishnu, under the form of this fish, in answer to the ques- 
tions of Manu, revealed unto him the Matsya Puran.'" 

From the Bhagawat, Book III. Chap. 13. 
THE EARTH RAISED FROM THE WATERS OF A DELUGE. 

" Parameshti, then, beholding the earth sunk amidst the 
waters, long meditated on the means by which it might be re- 
placed in its former situation. ' Whose divine aid,' he thought, 
' shall I implore to upraise from the deep abyss that earth which 
I formerly created ? That lord from whose heart I sprang can 
alone effect this mighty work.' As Brahma thus resolved, 
suddenly from his nostrils sprang a young boar, no larger than 
the thumb ; but, as he viewed it, in an instant it wonderfully in- 
creased to the size of a mighty elephant. The Rishis Prajapatis, 
Rumaras, and Manu, beholding the boar-like form in astonish- 
ment, thus in their minds conjectured : ' What can be this dehi- 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 19 

sive form of a boar, since, in reality, it must be of a divine 
nature ? How wonderful that it should spring from Brahma's 
nostrils no larger than the top of the thumb, and, in an instant, 
become equal to a mighty mountain ! Can it be that mighty 
lord, on whom we meditate with minds devout ? ' While thus 
they thought, that lord, who was the primeval victim, emitted a 
sound loud as thunder, and, as the eight regions reechoed the 
sound, Brahma and his sons were delighted ; for they hence 
knew the lord, and, their anxiety being dissipated, the pure in- 
habitants of Janalok, Tapalok, and Satyalok, united in addressing 
to him their holy praise. Pleased with these praises, the won- 
drous boar displayed himself like a vast mountain, with tail 
erect, mane waving, his bristles sharp as lances, and hoofs strik- 
ing the sky, and snuffing, in imitation of a boar, to discover the 
earth. Then he of the terrible tusk, with terror-divested eyes 
regarding those who were adoring him, like a sportive elephant 
dived into the abyss of waters ; and the waters being divided, as 
if a thunderbolt vast as a mountain had fallen precipitately into 
them, resounded like the thunder ; and, raising in pain its wide 
billows, the abyss profound exclaimed, ' Save me, O lord of sac- 
rifice ! ' Thus, subduing the waters with his sharp hoofs, he 
reached their utmost extremity, and saw lying there the earth, 
which he had originally intended for the abode of souls. Having 
then slain the demon Hiranyaksha, he uplifted it on his tusks 
from the dark abyss, and Brahma and his sons extolled his 
wondrous power." 

From the Padma Puran, Chap. 5. 

DAKSHA'S SACRIFICE. 

Pulastya, addressing Bhishma : — " Formerly, O Bhishma ! 
Daksha prepared a sacrifice at Gungadwara, to which came all the 
immortals and divine sages. At this festival celestial viands 
abounded. The consecrated place of sacrifice extended for several 
yojanas. Numerous altars were erected. The sacred rites and 
ceremonies were duly performed by Vasishta, Angiras, Vrihaspati, 
and Narada ; and Vishnu protected the sacrifice. But Sati thus 
addressed her father : ' My lord ! all the immortals, the divine 
sages, and my sisters with their husbands, adorned in the costli- 
est manner, have honored this festival with their presence ; and I 
observe that not a single one has been uninvited except my hus- 
band. But, unless he attend, empty will be all these rites, and 



20 SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

productive of no advantage. Say, then, has it been through 
forgetfulness that thou didst not invite my lord ? ' On hearing 
these words, Daksha, with parental affection, placed his youthful 
daughter, who showed such fondness for her husband, in his lap, 
and thus replied : ' Listen, my darling ! while I explain the 
reason why thy husband has not been invited. It is because that 
he is the bearer of a human skull, a delighter in cemeteries, ac- 
companied by ghosts and goblins, naked or merely clothed with 
a tiger's or elephant's skin, covered with ashes, wearing a neck- 
lace of human skulls, ornamented with serpents, always wander- 
ing about as a mendicant, sometimes dancing and sometimes 
singing, and neglecting all divine ordinances. Such evil prac- 
tices, my darling ! render thy husband the shame of the three 
worlds, and unworthy to be admitted at a sacrifice where 
Brahma, Vishnu, and all the immortals and divine sages, are 
present.' He ceased, and Sati, incensed by his words, with 
anger-inflamed eyes thus spoke : ' That god is the lord of the 
universe, from whom all things and beings have received their 
rank and station, and whose supreme excellence no tongue is 
able to declare ; and, though delighting in cemeteries, covered 
with ashes, and adorned with human bones and serpents, he is 
the creator, the provider, and the preserver. It was alone through 
the favor of Rudra [Shiva] that Indra obtained heaven ; through 
the will, also, of Rudra, Brahma creates ; and, were it not for 
Rudra, how could Vishnu have the power to preserve ? If, 
therefore, I have derived might from my devotion, and if I be 
beloved by Rudra, since thou hast despised him, this sacrifice 
shall be undoubtedly destroyed.' Having thus spoken, Sati fixed 
her mind in profound abstraction, and by her own splendor con- 
sumed her body, while all the immortals exclaimed in astonish- 
ment, ' How wonderful ! ' On being informed of this event, 
Shiva, much afflicted, collected myriads of ghosts, goblins, and 
demons, and hastened to Daksha's place of sacrifice ; which he 
completely destroyed, after having vanquished all the immortals 
that opposed him." 

From the Skanda Puran, the Chapter entitled "Kapardi 
Mahatmyam." 

GANESA CREATED. 

Shiva, addressing Parvati : — " Formerly, during the twilight 
that intervened between the Dwapara and Kali Yugs, women, 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 



21 



barbarians, Sudras, and other workers of sin, obtained en- 
trance into heaven by visiting the celebrated temple of Somesh- 
wara. Sacrifices, ascetic practices, charitable gifts, and all the 
other prescribed ordinances ceased, and men thronged only to 
the temple of Shiva. Hence old and young, the skilled in the 
Vedas and those ignorant of them, and even women and Sudras, 
ascended to heaven, until at length it became crowded to excess. 
Then Indra and the gods, afflicted at being thus overcome by 
men, sought the protection of Shiva, and thus with reverence 
addressed him : ' O Shankara ! by thy favor heaven is pervaded 
by men, and we are nearly expelled from it. These mortals 
wander wherever they please, exclaiming, " I am the greatest ! 
I am the greatest ! " and Dharma Rajah, beholding the register of 
their good and evil deeds, remains silent, lost in astonishment. 
For the seven hells were most assuredly intended for their recep- 
tion ; but, having visited thy shrine, their sins have been re- 
mitted, and they have obtained a most excellent futurity.' Shiva 
replied, ' Such was my promise to Soma, nor can it be infringed ; 
and all men, therefore, who visit the temple of Someshwara must 
ascend to heaven. But supplicate Parvati, and she wilL contrive 
some means for extricating you from this distress.' The gods 
then kneeling before Parvati, with folded hands 
and bended heads, thus invoked her assistance with 
laudatory strains : ' Praise be to thee, O supreme 
of goddesses, supporter of the universe ! Praise 
be to thee, O lotos-eyed, resplendent as gold ! 
Praise be to thee, O beloved of Shiva, who 
Greatest and destroyest ! Praise be to thee, O 
mountain-born ! Praise be to thee, O Kalarattri, 
O Durga, who pervadest the universe, and art 
the sole substance from which all female forms, 
whether mortal or immortal, originate ! Grant us 
thy aid, and save us from this fearful distress ! ' 
Having heard the supplication of Indra and the 
gods, thou, O goddess! wert moved with com- 
passion, and, gently rubbing thy body, there was 
thence produced a wondrous being with four 
arms and the head of an elephant ; when thou Ganesa. 

thus addressedst the gods : * Desirous of your advantage have I 
created this being, who will occasion obstacles to men, and, 
deluding them, will deprive them of the wish to visit Somana- 
tha, and thus shall they fall into hell.' This heard, the gods 




22 SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

were delighted, and returned to their own abodes, reUeved from 
all fear of mankind." 

From the Lainga Puran, Part II. j Chap. 100. 

KALI CREATED. 

Suta thus spoke : — " Formerly a female Asura,* named 
Daruka, had through devotion obtained such power, that she con- 
sumed like fire the gods and Brahmins. But, as she was at- 
tended by a numerous host of female Asuras, Vishnu, and all the 
gods, were afraid to engage in battle with her, lest they should 
incur the sin of feminicide. They in consequence proceeded to 
Shiva, and with laudatory strains entreated his assistance ; and 
he then, regarding Devi, thus addressed her : ' Let me request, O 
lovely one ! that thou wouldst now, for the benefit of the uni- 
verse, effect the destruction of this Daruka.' Having heard these 
words, Parvati created from her own substance a maiden of black 
color, with matted locks, with an eye in her forehead, bearing in 
her hands a trident and a skull, of aspect terrible to behold, and 
arrayed in celestial garments and adorned with all kinds of orna- 
ments. On beholding this terrific form of darkness, the gods 
retreated in alarm. Parvati then created innumerable ghosts, 
goblins, and demons ; and, attended by these. Kali in obedience 
to her order, attacked and destroyed Daruka, and removed the 
distress of the world." 

This legend concludes in the following singular manner : 
" Shiva also appeared as an infant in a cemetery surrounded by 
ghosts, and on beholding him Kali took him up, and, caressing 
him, gave him her breast. He sucked the nectareous fluid ; but 
becoming' angry, in order to divert and pacify him. Kali, clasping 
him to her bosom, danced with her attendant goblins and demons 
amongst the dead until he was pleased and delighted ; while 
Vishnu, Brahma, Indra, and all the gods, bowing themselves, 
praised with laudatory strains the god of gods, Parvati and Kali." 

From the Garura Puran. 
INVOCATION TO DURGA, OR KALI. 

" On the ninth of each half month invoke Durga with these 
words : ' Hrim, protect me, O Durga ! O chief of the divine 
mothers ! giver of blessings ! accept these various offerings of flesh 
and my prayers.^ On the third, also, of JMargashirsha commence 

* Demon. 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 23 

the worship of Durga before her image having eighteen hands, 
and holding in them a mace, a bell, a looking-glass, an iron rod, 
a bow, a banner, a small drum, a battle-axe, a noose, a lance, a 
club, a trident, a disk, a shield, an ankush^ a dart, a thunderbolt, 
and a skull ; and address to her the following hymn : ' Om, praise 
be to thee, O Bhagawati, Chamunda ! dweller in cemeteries, 
bearer of a skull, borne on a car drawn by ghosts, Kalarattri, 
large-mouthed, many-armed, sounding thy bell and drum, laugh- 
ing terribly, gnashing thy horrid teeth loudly, clothed in an ele- 
phant's skin, with a body full of flesh and blood, and a tremen- 
dous tongue ! Praise be to thee, O Kali ! with terrific tusks and 
fear-inspiring eyes flashing like lightning, with a countenance 
dark with frowns, bearing the moon on thy matted locks, and on 
thy neck a string of skulls ! Hram, Hram, O destroyer of diffi- 
culties ! quickly accomplish this business ! O delighter in flesh 
and blood ! be propitious, be propitious, and enter this place ! 
Enter, enter ! tread, tread ! dance, dance ! Why delayest thou to 
enter ? O wearer of human heads and skulls ! seize, seize ! 
tear, tear ! consume, consume ! slay, slay ! Hruin, Hrum, de- 
stroy, destroy ! pierce, pierce with thy trident ! kill, kill with 
thy thunderbolt ! smite, smite with thy rod ! cut off", cut off" with 
thy disk ! fell, fell with thy mace ! strike, strike with thy axe ! 
Come, come, O Maheshwari ! come, O Kamarini ! come, O 
Varahi ! come, O Aindri ! come, O Chamunda ! come, O Kapa- 
lini ! come, O Mahakali ! come, O frequenter of Kailasa ! enter, 
enter this place, O thou who executest the wrath of Rudra, and 
causest the destruction of the Asuras ! ' " 

The Introduction or Dedication of the Mahaharat 

A HYMN OF PRAISE TO DURGA. 

Hail, greatest of goddesses, victory unto thee, 

Victory unto thee, Hurree Chandee ! 

In thy forehead thy red mark appeared so glowing, 

O Dabee ! we tremble to see thee. 

At thy ears hang the gold rings so large and so brilliant ; 

At thy nose is the rich gapamatee ; * 

Thy hands hold the cleaver, and trident, and blood-dish — 

So dreadful appears Bhagabattee ! 

Sixty-four times ten millions of witches and spectres, 

Thee their patroness and mistress attending. 

Thou art Loksmee, the primeval motlier of all things, 

In creation we see thee extending. 

* Jow.ei. 



24 SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

In each house dost thou enter, on holiness thinking ; 

There to dwell with the pure thou art wont 

Fifteen million times than a warrior stronger, 

Thme arm Moyassoor did slay ; 

Thy sword Roktabija, the dread demon, laid low, 

And the fear of the gods did allay. 

The wife of Eswara, a strange, fearful demon, 

A ghost and the mother of all. 

Nineteen millions of devils, all females and fearful. 

From thy body came forth at thy call. 

With round eyes and flat forehead thou starest portentious. 

And utterest thy dread voice in thunder. 

With thy cleaver and blood-dish and bloody tongue quivering, 

Thou enterest graveyards, devouring choice corpses. 

Still with battle-field slaughter unfilled. 

How sweet is the blood of the good man unto thee ! 

Still his gore from thy mouth is distilled. 

Thou rejoicest to hear the dread battle's loud slaughter, 

The sound of the Ra ! Ra ! so dire. 

The chief of the holy, thy names, lady, are many, 

At the cry of Ra ! Ra ! swiftly flying. 

Nine hundred times counted, one thousand of witches. 

Of ghosts and of devils obey thee. 

In the silence of midnight, when dark, are thy witches 

A corpse for a vehicle using, 

When the fresh dead are lying, thou a feast gladly makest. 

With the green skulls thy fancy amusing. 

When the flames of the funeral gleam through the night's darkness, 

When the dead they are wont to consume. 

How swiftly thou runnest to snuff" the rich odors ! 

To thee they are richest perfume. 

To thy timbrel's jingle, in the air ever sounding, 

Ghosts and devils innumerable dance ; 

They share in thy honors and share in thy worship. 

As thy name and thy praise they advance. 

Thou art greater than Brahma, or Vishnu, or Shiva 

Thou art called the great Bhagabattee. 

Translated by Rev. Charles Lacey,for Caleb Wright. 



From the Matsya Puran, Chap. 3, 4. 
BRAHMA'S INCEST. 

'' Brahma next formed from his own immaculate substance a 
female, who is celebrated under the names of Shatarupa, 
Savitri, Sarasvati, Gayairi, and Brahmani. Then, beliolding 
his daughter, born from his own body, Brahma became wounded 
with the arrows of love, and exclaimed, ' How surpassing lovely- 
she is ! ' But Shatarupa turned to the right side from his gaze, 
and, as Brahma wished to look after her, a second head appeared ; 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 25 

and thus, as she passed, in order to avoid his amorous glances, to 
his left and his rear, two other heads successively manifested 
themselves. At length she sprang into the sky, and, as Brahma 
was anxious to gaze after her, a fifth head was immediately 
formed. Then Brahma thus called to his daughter : ' Let us 
generate all kinds of animated beings, men. Suras, and Asuras.'* 
On hearing these words she descended ; and, Brahma having 
espoused her, they withdrew into a secluded spot, and there 
indulged in the delights of love for one hundred divine years." 



From the Vamana Puran^ Chap. 6. 

" Then Hara, wounded by the arrows of Kama, [the god of 
love,] wandered into a deep forest, named Daruvanmn, where 
holy sages and their wives resided. The sages, on beholding 
Shiva, saluted him with bended heads, and he, wearied, said to 
them, ' Give me alms.' Thus he went begging round the differ- 
ent hermitages ; and, wherever he came, the minds of the sages' 
wives, on seeing him, became disturbed and agitated with the 
pain of love, and all commenced to follow him. But, when the 
sages saw their holy dwellings thus deserted, they exclaimed, 
'^May the lingam of this man f fall to the ground ! ' That 
instant the lingam of Shiva fell to the ground ; and the god 
immediately disappeared. The lingam, then, as it fell, penetrated 
through the lower worlds, and increased in height until its top 
towered above the heavens. The earth quaked, and all things 
movable and immovable were agitated; on perceiving which, 
Brahma hastened to the Sea of Milk, and said to Vishnu, ' Say, 
why does the universe thus tremble ? ' Hari replied, ' On ac- 
count of the falling of Shiva's lingam, in consequence of the 
curse of the holy and divine sages.' On hearing of this most 
wonderful event, Brahma said, ' Let us go and behold this 
lingam.' The two gods then repaired to Daruvanam; and, on 
beholding it without beginning or end, Vishnu mounted the 
king of birds and descended into the lower regions in order to 
ascertain its base ; and, for the purpose of discovering its top, 
Brahma in a lotos car ascended the heavens. But they returned 
from their search wearied and disappointed, and together ap- 
proaching the lingam, with due reverence and praises, entreated 

* Suras are gods, and Asuras are demons. 
♦ Shiva was disguised, and the sages, therefore, did not know him. 



26 SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

Shiva to resume his lingara. Thus propitiated, that god appeared 
in his own form, and said, ' If gods and men will worship * my 
lingam, I will resume it ; but not otherwise.' To this proposal 
Vishnu, Brahma, and the gods, assented." f 

From the Bhagavat Geeta, p. 90. 

PART OF ARJOON'S DESCRIPTION OF KRISHNA, WHOM HE SAW 

IN A VISION. 

" The winds, alike with me, are terrified to behold thy 
wondrous form gigantic ; with many mouths and eyes ; with 
many arms, and legs, and breasts ; with many bellies, and with 
rows of dreadful teeth ! Thus, as I see thee, touching the 
heavens, and shining with such glory, of such various hues, 
with widely-opened mouths, and bright, expanded eyes, I 
am disturbed within me ; my resolution faileth me, O Vish- 
nu ! and I find no rest ! Having beholden thy dreadful teeth, 
and gazed on thy countenance, — emblem of time's last fire, 
— I know not which way to turn ! I find no peace ! Have 
mercy, then, O god of gods ! thou mansion of the universe ! 
The sons of Dhreetarashtra now, with all those rulers of the 
land, Bheeshma, Drona, the son of Soot, and even the fronts of 
our army, seem to be precipitating themselves hastily into thy 
mouth, discovering such frightful rows of teeth ! whilst some 
appear to stick between thy teeth with their bodies sorely 
mangled. As the rapid streams of full-flowing rivers roll on to 
meet the ocean's bed, even so these heroes of the human race 
rush on towards thy flaming mouths. As troops of insects, with 

* It is now the principal object of worship in more than half of the temples of 
India. 

f "The lingam is formed of stone, and consists of a base three or four feet high, 
the top of which is surrounded by a raised rim ; and in the middle is slightly 
excavated, and raised on a level with the rim, the figure of a yoni, [pudendum viu- 
Uebre,) from the centre of which rises a smooth, round stone, slightly conical 
towards the top, of a foot and a half in height and about three inches diameter at 
the base. Major Moor has, therefore, very justly observed, ' It is some com- 
parative and negative praise to the Hindus, that the emblems under which they 
exhibit the elements and operations of nature are not externally indecorous. 
Unlike the abominable realities of Egypt and Greece, we see the phallic emblem 
in the Hindu Pantheon without offence ; and know not, until the information be 
extorted, that we are contemplating a symbol whose prototype is indelicate. The 
plates of my book may be turned and examined, over and over, and the uninformed 
observer will not be aware that in several of them he has viewed the typical rep- 
resentation of the generative organs or powers of humanity.' " — Ancient and Hindu 
Mythology, by Col. Kennedy, pp. 103, 104. 



SPECIMENS or THE SHA.STERS. 27 

increasing speed, seek their own destruction in the flaming fire, 
even so these people, with swelHng fury, seek their own destruc- 
tion. Thou involvest and swallowest them ahogether, even unto 
the last, with thy flaming mouths, whilst the whole is filled with 
thy glory, as thy awful beams, O Vishnu, shine forth on all 
sides ! " 

THE MOON PLANT SACRIFICE. 

The moon-plant must be collected in a moonlight night, from 
the table-land on the top of a mountain, and carted to the place 
of sacrifice by two rams or he-goats. The juice of the plant, 
mixed with barley and other ingredients, becomes, by fermenta- 
tion, a very intoxicating liquor. The officiating Brahmins are to 
drink this liquor as a part of the performance. The sacrifice 
continues several weeks, and is accompanied by numerous aus- 
terities which endanger the lives of the worshippers. 

Tuka Rama, a sage who flourished about three hundred years 
ago, speaks of muzzling the animals used in carting the moon- 
plant, and of beating them to death by the fists of the Brahmins. 
His verses are to the following effect : — 

" Beat to death the ram you've muzzled, 

And offer the Soma with sacred song : — 
So they say ; but yet I'm puzzled, 

And half suspect such worship wrong ; 
For rites like these are at best but scurvy, 
That turn religion topsy-turvy." 

In the Sama Veda, there is a series of about a thousand verses, 
designed to be chanted or sung at the moon-plant sacrifice. The 
following extracts will serve as specimens. Each paragraph, the 
last one excepted, contains an entire verse. 

" O Agni ! whether I now speak with true intonations or with 
false, I mean to praise thee. Come hither, therefore, and grow 
great by drinking this moon-plant juice." 

" O Indra ! drinker of the moon-plant juice, these thy friends 
[the attendant priests] look on thee, with the aff"ection that the 
cattle-feeder looks on his cattle." 

" We call on thee, the performer of meritorious acts, day by 
day, as men call on the cow to the milking." 

" Let these moon-plants fill thee with delight, O holder of the 
thunderbolt ! Do thou procure for us wealth, and, at the same 
time, kill outright all who hate the Brahmins." 



28 SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

" O Indra ! wherever — whether in some strong chest or in some 
hill or well — treasure worthy of regard is laid up, thence do thou 
bring it to us." 

" O Indra ! this morning accept our sacrifice, accompanied 
with rice, curds, sweet cakes, and praises." 

" Come into our presence to partake of the moon-plant juice 
and other viands. Do not get angry with us, [but bear with us] 
as an elderly man does with a young wife." 

" We, who are eager for the possession of riches, take hold of 
thy right hand, O Indra, lord of wealth ! We know thee, O 
mighty god ! to be lord of cattle ; give us then that wealth which 
consists in cows that yield large supplies of milk." 

" O worthy of all praise ! let our eucharistic songs fix thee, as 
firmly as the charioteer is fixed in his seat, and let their sym- 
phony sound before thee like the lowing of newly-calved cows 
for their calves." 

" When, O Indra ! those who come to worship invoke thee, 
and delight thee with sacrificial viands, and ceremonies used for 
the obtaining victory over our enemies, then do thou yoke thy 
banquet-going horses, and having slain some one, and seized his 
wealth, bestow it on us." 

" Bestow on us a good and auspicious intellect, along with 
wisdom and food, that we may secure thy friendship ; and do 
thou delight in our spirituous liquors as cows do in rich 
pasturage." 

" He who causes the well-filled golden-colored horses' grain- 
dish to glisten, is the man who will stand in the first place before 
thy rain-causing, cow-conferring chariot. O Indra ! now yoke 
thy horses." 

" Come, Indra ! with all thy bands, like the herd of cows 
collected in the cow-house." 

" The mountain-produced, pressed moon-plant is distilling its 
juice in the holy place. Thou, O Soma ! art the embroiler of all 
things in thy drunken frolics." 

" The Brahmins, void of malice, sing praises before the beloved, 
much-desired presence of Indra, with the affection cow-mothers 
lick their calves in the day they are produced." 

" [O priests,] we praise all the day long that renowned, foe- 
destroying Indra of yours, who gets muzzy on the sacrificial bever- 
age placed in the sacred vessels, with voices raised as loud as those 
of milch-cows lowing for their calves. [Indra,] we desire of thee 
quickly to give us food of heavenly origin, worthy of being 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 39 

bestowed, encircled with majesty as a mountain with clouds, 
capable of feeding multitudes, worthy of being extolled, in hun- 
dreds and thousands of different kinds of measure, and, united 
with it, abundance of cows." 

" The sweet moon-plants, when pressed, flow in a stream, and 
with a loud voice, for the production of inebriation. The juices 
flow down during the time of bruising with a noise for the 
glorious toper Indra, who gives its splendor to the morning." 



From the Padma Puran, Chap. IX. 
OCCURRENCES IN THE HEAVEN KAILASA. 

Narada said : — " At this time I went and informed Jalandhara 
that Shambhu * had promised to effect his destruction. Jaland- 
hara then said to me, ' O holy sage ! what precious things are 
contained in the abode of the bearer * of the trident ? Acquaint 
me with the whole, as war should not be unless there be booty.' 
I replied, ' Shambhu is old, covered with ashes, his neck marked 
with the poison of serpents, mounted on a bull, bearing a beggar's 
dish in his hand, and with an elephant-headed and a six-headed 
son,f and he has nothing valuable belonging to him except the 
lovely and full-bosomed daughter of the mountain. Inflamed 
with love and captivated by her beauty, Mahesha * passes his 
days in sport and dalliance, or sings and dances to amuse her. 
She is named Parvati, and far excels in loveliness either Vrinda 
or the nymphs of heaven.' Having thus spoken, and excited 
the desire of Jalandhara, I disappeared. 

" After this the son of the sea despatched Rahu on an embassy 
to Kailasa, who arrived there in a moment ; and, on beholding 
the resplendent abode of Shambhu, he exclaimed to himself, 
' How wonderful is this place ! ' He then wished to enter, but 
was prevented by the warders, who demanded his business. 
Rahu replied, ' I am the ambassador of Jalandhara ; but the mes- 
sage of a mighty king is not addressed unto a doorkeeper.' 
Nandi, hearing these words, hastened and informed Shiva ; and, 
having received his commands, introduced Rahu. Having en- 
tered, he beheld Shambhu, five-faced and ten-armed, his sacri- 
ficial cord formed of a snake, and his matted locks adorned with 
the moon, waited upon by vile and ugly servants, but attended 

* Shiva, 
f Ganesa and Kartika. See the engraving of Ganesa on page 21. 



30 SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 

by all the immortals, who, looking to the ambassador, desired 
him to speak. Rahu then began : * O lord ! I am sent to thee 
by Jalandhara: hear his auspicious words from my mouth ; and 
do thou, who art addicted to devotion, devoid of affection, an 
abandoner of works, who hast neither father nor mother, nor 
observest the duties of the householder, obey his commands. 
The mighty Jalandhara enjoys the dominion of the three worlds ; 
do thou also become subject to him. Why shouldst thou, old, 
libidinous, and the rider of a bull, refuse to obey him? ' While 
Rahu thus spoke, the sons of Shiva, Ganesa and Skanda,* were 
rubbing his body ; and, disturbed by their hands, Vasuki fell to 
the ground, and immediately began to swallow the rat, Ganesa's 
vehicle, beginning with the tail. Gananayaka,f on observing 
the snake about to swallow his courser, called out, ' Loose ! 




Skanda, or Kartika. 

loose ! ' At this time Skanda's peacock began to scream in the 
shrillest manner ; and the serpent, frightened, disgorged the rat, 
and hastened to replace himself on the neck of Shiva, where, 
violently respiring, he dimmed the brightness of the moon with 
his poisonous breath. Then came the beloved of Vishnu, drip- 
ping from her couch in the Milky Sea, and bearing a vase full 
with the beverage of immortality, with which she reanimated 
the head of Brahma that Shiva's hand eternally displays. The 
head, falling and rolling on the ground, exclaimed in boasting 
accents, while the spectators expressed to each other their aston- 
ishment, ' I am the first — I am the most ancient of beings — I 
am the creator — I am the lord of all things.' At this moment, 
from the matted locks of Shiva sprang myriads of beings, three- 

* Kartika f Ganesa. 



SPECIMENS OF THE SHASTERS. 31 

faced, three-footed, seven-armed, and with yellow hair hanging in 
long and matted locks, on seeing whom the head became mute as 
the dead. Having beheld these wonders, Rahu, in fear and aston- 
ishment, thus again addressed Mahesha: 'O lord! through the 
strength of thy devotion and abstraction, affections touch not 
thee ; why then dost thou sacrifice to feelings and passions ? 
Thou receives! adoration from Brahma and all other deities ; but 
who is the god whom thou adorest ? Thou art the supreme god ; 
why, therefore, dost thou collect the scraps of the beggar ? But, 
O chief of devotees ! since thou preferrest a state of pious mortifi- 
cation, yield up Gauri and thy two sons, Ganesa and Skanda ; 
and do thou, with a beggar's dish, wander from door to door.' 
Thus Rahu urged his request in many words ; but Maheshwara 
returned no answer. Then Rahu, as Isha would not break 
silence, thus addressed Nandi : ' Thou art a minister and a 
general, and canst therefore inform me what means this departure 
from all received usages ; as it is not becoming that a prince, to 
whom an ambassador is sent, should preserve silence.' But 
Nandi replied not, and immediately, on a sign from Shiva, 
reconducted and dismissed Rahu, who hastened to Jalandhara 
and related to him all that had passed." 

" The mighty Jalandhara, having heard the relation of his am- 
bassador, immediately arrayed his army and marched forward. 
Then the tumult of his approaching forces resounded through 
the inmost recesses of Mandara ; and wide was it spread by the 
echoes of Meru, while lions started from their dens ; warlike 
instruments with their clangor, dear to the warrior, deafened the 
three worlds ; and, as trod the mighty Danavas, the lofty moun- 
tains trembled, and the seas were agitated. The armor of 
warriors clashed as on they marched, borne on various vehicles ; 
and the wheels of the war-chariots harsh grated along the 
ground. White umbrellas shaded the mighty host from the sun, 
and fans formed of peacocks' feathers prevented heat. From the 
innumerable elephants, cars, horse, and foot, arose clouds of dust, 
which spread over the sky like the blue lotos, or the dark billows 
of the heaving ocean. * * * Then Nandi and Shumbha 
showered arrows on each other thick as the leaves are strown on 
Mandara when storms agitate its trees. At length Shumbha, 
throwing away his bow, rushed to the chariot of Nandi, and, 
wounding him on the breast, he fell senseless like a mountain 
struck by a thunderbolt." 



32 




Katmappm, a stone image, Jive feet and Jive inches in height, formerly worshipped at 
Amattavanakoody, in South India. 



DESCRIPTION 



PAG-AN FESTIVALS, 



CELEBRATED ANNUALLY IN CALCUTTA, AT AN EXPENSE OF 

THREE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, 

By Rev. ALEXANDER DUFF, D. D., 

OF CALCUTTA. 




PUBLISHED BY CALEB WRIGHT, 




A Palankem Bearer of the Roiuaney caste dancing about the streets in cdebration of the 
Durga Festival. See page 15. 



A BRIEF DESCRIPTION 



OF 



TWO OF THE PRINCIPAL HINDU FESTIVALS. 



In India, the division of time into weeks has all along been 
observed. The remembrancej however, of the seventh as a 
Sabbath, or sacred day of rest, has been completely lost. In- 
stead thereof, there have been substituted certain periodical or 
anniversary days of high festival, in honor of the principal divin- 
ities. These are so numerous, that it would be impossible 




Shiva. 



Brahma. 



Vishnnn. 



within our limits to describe them all, as the description would 
be exceedingly voluminous. Every sect has its own favorite 
tutelary deity, in honor of whom stated periodical festivals 
are held. 



4 DURGA FESTIVAL. 

There is scarcely a day in the twelvemonth on which the 
anniversary of one or other of the gods is not celebrated by one 
or other of the leading sects, or sub-sects. It is quite enough 
for our purpose, to refer to one or two of those festivals which 
— from the superiority of the divinity adored, the prodigious 
multitudes that engage in the religious rites, and the universal 
suspension of business among all classes for several days — may 
strictly and truly be denominated national. In Bengal, in par- 
ticular, the consort of Shiva, the destroying power, is the divin- 
ity that engrosses the largest proportion of daily, monthly, and 
annual devotion. Like the other principal deities, she has been 
manifested under an immense variety of forms. Of these a 
thousand are usually enumerated, under as many distinct appel- 
lations. Of the thousand forms, there are two that have risen 
to unrivalled preeminence above the rest. These are the forms 
of Durga and Kali. To these, therefore, our attention may be 
chiefly directed. 

In the form of Durga, the consort of Shiva has been said to 
blend in herself the characters of the Olympian Juno and the 
Pallas, or armed Minerva, of the Greeks. She is, however, a far 
more tremendous personage than both of these combined. Hav- 
ing been endowed by all the gods severally with their distinc- 
tive attributes, she concentrates in herself their united power 
and divinity. She has thus become at once their champion and 
protectress. Hence her towering preeminence above them all 
in popular estimation ; and hence, of all the annual festivals, 
that of Durga is most extensively celebrated in Eastern India. 
In this character, she is usually represented with ten arms, into 
which the principal gods delivered their respective weapons of 
warfare. From one she received the trident ; from a second, a 
quiver and arrows ; from a third, a battle-axe ; from a fourth, 
an iron club : from a fifth, spears and thunderbolts ; and so, 
from other gods, various other warlike instruments ; together 
with the befitting ornaments of a golden crown, and robes mag- 
nificently adorned with jewels, and a necklace of pearls, and a 
wreathed circlet of snakes. 

Thus martially accoutred, the belligerent goddess is ever 
ready to encounter the mightiest giants, and most malignant 
demons, that dare to invade the repose of the immortals. It was 
in consequence of destroying a giant, of such terrible potency as 
to have dispossessed the gods of their dominion, that she gained 
the name of Durga. As the description of this celebrated con- 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 5 

test is a fair specimen of the manner in which the founders of 
Hinduism conceived and depicted those numberless battles of 
gods with which the sacred books abound, and as the reiter- 
ated rehearsal of it enters largely into all the meditations and 
prayers, the invocations and praise, the songs and the hymns, of 
millions of adoring worshippers, on days of high festival, it may 
be well to introduce the original account of it, though in a 
somewhat abridged form, from the volumes of Ward. 

In remote ages, a giant named Durga, having performed re- 
ligious austerities of transcendent merit, in honor of Brahma,, 
obtained his blessing, and became a great oppressor. He con- 
quered the three worlds ; dethroned all the gods, except the 
sacred Triad ; banished them from their respective heavens to 
live in forests ; and compelled them, at his nod, to come and 
bow down and worship before him, and celebrate his praise. 
He abolished all religious ceremonies. The Brahmans, through 
fear of him, forsook the reading of the Vedas. The rivers 
changed their courses. Fire lost its energy. The terrified 
stars retired from his sight. He assumed the forms of the 
clouds, and gave rain whenever he pleased ; the earth, through 
fear, gave an abundant increase ; and the trees yielded flowers 
and fruits out of season. The gods at length applied to Shiva. 
One said. He has dethroned me ; another. He has taken my king- 
dom ; and thus all the gods related their misfortunes. Shiva, 
pitying their case, desired his wife, Parvati, to go and destroy 
the giant. She willingly accepted the commission. Durga 
prepared to meet her with an army of thirty thousand giants, 
who were such monsters in size, that they covered the surface 
of the earth, — ten millions of swift-footed horses, — a hundred 
millions of chariots, — a hundred and twent}'' thousand millions 
of elephants, — and soldiers beyond the power of arithmetic to 
number. Parvati, having assumed a thousand arms, sat down 
upon a mountain, coolly awaiting the approach of her formidable 
foes. The troops of the giant poured their arrows at her, thick 
as the drops of rain in a storm ; they even tore up the trees and 
the mountains, and hurled them at the goddess : she turned 
them all away, and caused millions of strange beings to issue 
from her body, which devoured all her enemies except their 
great leader. He then hurled a flaming dart at the goddess j 
she easily turned it aside. He discharged another ; this she 
resisted by a hundred arrows. He levelled at her a club emd 
pike 5 these, too, she repelled. He broke off the peak of a moun- 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 



tain, and threw it at her ; she cut it into seven pieces by her 
spear. He now assumed the shape of an elephant as large as a 
mountain, and approached the goddess ; but she tied his legs, 
and with her nails, which were like cimeters, tore him to 
pieces. He then arose in the form of a buffalo, and with his 
horns cast stones and mountains at the goddess, tearing up 
the trees by the breath of his nostrils ; she pierced him with a 
trident, when he reeled to and fro. Renouncing the form of a 
buffalo, he reassumed his original body as a giant, with a thou- 
sand arms, and weapons in each ; she seized him by his thousand 
arms and carried him into the air, from whence she threw him 
down with a dreadful force. Perceiving, however, that this had 
no effect, she pierced him in the breast with an arrow ; when 
the blood issued in streams from his mouth, and he expired. 
The gods, filled with joy, immediately reascended their thrones, 
and were reinstated in their former splendor. The Brahmans 
recommenced the study of the Vedas. Sacrifices were again 
regularly performed. Every thing reassumed its pristine state. 
The heavens rang with the praises of Parvati ; and the gods, 
in return for so signal a deliverance, immortalized the victory by 
transferring to the heroine the name of Durga. 

Suppose, then, you were in Calcutta in the month of Sep- 
tember, you might every where witness the most splendid and 
extensive preparations for the annual festival of Durga. In 
going along the streets of the native city, your eye might be 
chiefly arrested by the profusion of images unceremoniously ex- 
posed to sale like the commonest commodity. On inquiry, you 
are told that wealthy natives have images of the goddess in their 
houses, made of gold, silver, brass, copper, crystal, stone, or mixed 
metal, which are daily luorshipped. These are stable and per- 
manent heir-looms in. a family ; and are transmitted from sire to 
son, like any other of the goods and chattels that become hered- 
itary property. But, besides these, you are next informed that, 
for the ceremonial purpose of a great festival, multitudes of 
temporary images are prepared. The reason why we call these 
temporary will appear by and by. These may be made of a 
composition of hay, sticks, clay, wood, or other cheap and light 
materials. They may be made of any size, from a iew inches 
to ten, twelve, or twenty feet in height. But the ordinary size 
is that of the human stature. The only limitation is that of the 
form. This is prescribed by divine authority ; and from it 
there must be no departure. Hence all are framed or fashioned 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 7 

after the same divine model. This, we may remark in passing, 
IS one of the principal reasons why, in India, the arts of painting 
and statUciry have for ages been stationary. These images may 
be made by the worshipping parties themselves, and made so 
>mall, £ind of substances so little expensive, that the poorest may 
be provided with one as well as the richest. But if the parties 
do not choose to make the images themselves, they can be at 
no loss. There is an abundance of image-makers by profession. 
And, alas ! in a city like Calcutta, the craft of image-making is 
by far the most lucrative and unfluctuating of all crafts. If 
there be thousands and tens of thousands of families that are to 
engage in the celebration of the festival, there must be thousands 
and tens of thousands of images prepared for it. 

This explains to you the origin of the spectacle presented to 
your eyes in passing along the streets of Calcutta. Before, 
behind, on the right and on the left, here, and there, and 
every where, you seem encompassed with a forest of images of 
different sizes, and piles of limbs, and bodies, and fragments of 
images, of divers materials, finished and unfinished, — in all the 
intermediate stages of progressive fabrication. But not only is 
the sense of vision affected ; the ears, too, are assailed by the 
noise of implements busily wielded by the workmen. You 
step aside, and, standing at the door of an image-maker's work- 
shop, you gaze with wonder at the novel process. 

After the abatement of the first surprise, you are impelled to 
address the men. " What ! " you exclaim, " do you really be- 
lieve that, with your own hands, you can, out of wood, and straw, 
and clay, fabricate a god before which you may fall down and 
worship?" "No," will be the prompt reply; " we believe no 
such thing." " What, then, do you believe ? " " We believe," 
respond they, " that we mould and fashion only the representative 
image, or graven likeness, of the deity." " How, then, come 
you to worship it ? " " Wait," may be the reply, " till the first 
great day of the feast, and you will then see how it is rendered 
worthy of homage and adoration." 

As the great day approaches, symptoms of increasing prepara- 
tion thicken and multiply all around. People are seen in every 
direction peaceably conveying the images to their houses. The 
materials for wonder-stirring exhibitions and ceremonial obser- 
vances are every where accumulating. Thousands of residents 
from a distance are seen returning to their homes in the interior, 
laden with the earnings and the profits of months to lavish on 



8 DURGA FESTIVAL. 

the great occasion. At length the government offices are by 
proclamation shut for a whole weelc ! Secular business of every 
description, public or private, is suspended by land and by 
water, in town and in country. All things seem to announce 
the approach of a grand holiday — a season of universal joy and 
festivity. 

It extends altogether over a period of fifteen days. The 
greater part of that time is occupied with the performance of 
preliminary ceremonies, previous to the three great days of 
worship. Early on the morning of the first of the three great 
days commences the grand rite of consecrating the images. 
Hitherto these have been regarded merely as combinations of 
lifeless, senseless matter. Now, however, by the power of the 
Brahmans, — those vicegerents of deity on earth, — they are to 
be endowed with life and intelligence. A wealthy family can 
always secure the services of one or more Brahmans ; and of 
the very poor, a few may always unite, and secure the good 
offices of one of the sacred fraternity. At length the solemn 
hour arrives. The officiating Brahman, provided with the 
leaves of a sacred tree, and other holy accoutrements, approaches 
the image. With the two forefingers of his right hand he 
touches the breast, the two cheeks, the eyes, and the forehead 
of the image, at each successive touch giving audible utterance 
to the prayer, — "Let the spirit of Durga descend, and take 
possession of this image ! " And thus, by the performance of 
various ceremonies, and the ermnciation of various mystical 
verses or incantations, called muntras, the ghostly officiator is 
devoutly believed to possess the divine power of bringing down 
the goddess to take bodily possession of the image. The image 
is henceforward regarded as the peculiar local habitation of the 
divinity, and is believed to be really and truly animated by her. 
In this way, the relation of the visible image to the invisible 
deity is held to be precisely the same as the relation of the 
human body to the soul, or subtile spirit, that actuates it. The 
constant and universal belief is, that when the Brahman repeats 
the muntras, the deities must come, obedient to his call, agree- 
ably to the favorite Sanskrit sloka, or verse — " The universe 
is under the power of the deities ; the deities are under the 
power of the muntras; the muntras are under the power of 
the Brahmans ; consequently, the Brahmans are gods." This 
is the creed of the more enlightened ; but a vast proportion of 
the more ignorant and unreflecting believe something far more 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 9 

gross. It is their firm persuasion that, by means of the cere- 
monies and incantations, the mass of rude matter has been ac- 
tually changed or transformed, or, if you will, transubstantiated, 
into the very substance of deity itself. According to either 
view of the subject, whether more or less rational, the image 
is believed to be truly animated by divinity, — to be a real, 
proper, and legitimate object of worship. Having eyes, it can 
now behold the various acts of homage rendered by adoring 
votaries ; having ears, it can be charmed by the symphonies of 
music and of song ; having nostrils, it can be regaled with the 
sweet-smelling savor of incense and perfume ; having a mouth, 
it can be luxuriated with the grateful delicacies of the rich ban- 
quet that is spread out before it. 

Immediately after the consecration of the images, the worship 
commences, and is continued with numberless rites nearly the 
whole day. But what description can convey an idea of the 
multifarious complexity of Indian worship ? — worship, too, 
simultaneously conducted in thousands of separate houses ; 
for on such occasions every house is converted into a temple. 
To bring the subject within some reasonable compass, you must 
suppose yourself in the house of a wealthy native. Let it be 
one which is constructed, as usual, of a quadrangular form, — 
with a vacant area in the centre, open or roofless towards the 
canopy of heaven. On one side is a spacious hall, opening 
along the ground floor, by many folding doors, to piazzas or 
verandas on either side. These are crowded by the more 
common sort of visitors. Round the greater part of the interior 
is a range of galleries, with retiring chambers. Part of these is 
devoted to the reception of visitors of the higher ranks, whether 
European or native, and part is closed for the accommodation 
of the females of the family, who, without being seen them- 
selves, may, through the Venetians, view both visitors and wor- 
shippers, as well as the varied festivities. The walls, the 
columns, and fronts of the verandas and galleries, are all fan- 
tastically decorated with a profusion of tinsel ornaments of 
colored silk and paper, and glittering shapes and forms of gold 
and silver tissue. To crown all, there is, in the genuine Orien- 
tal style, an extravagant display of lustres, — suspended from 
the ceiling, and projecting from the walls, — which, when kin- 
dled at night, radiate a flood of light enough to dazzle and con- 
found ordinary vision. 

At the upper extremity of the hall is the ten-armed image of 



10 DURGA FESTIVAL. 

the goddess, raised several feet on an ornamented pedestal. On 
either side of her are usually placed images of her two sons ; — 
Ganesha, the god of wisdom, with his elephant head ; and Kar- 
tikeya, the god of war, riding on a peacock. These are wor- 
shipped on this occasion, together with a multitude of demi-god- 
desses, the companions of Darga in her wars. 

In the evening, about eight o'clock, the principal pujah, or 
worship, is renewed with augmented zeal. But what consti- 
tutes pujah, or loorskip, in that land ? Watch the devotee, and 
you will soon discover. He enters the hall ; he approaches the 
image, and prostrates himself before it. After the usual ablu- 
tions, and other preparatory rites, he next twists himself into a 
variety of grotesque postures ; sometimes sitting on the floor, 
sometimes standing ; sometimes looking in one direction, and 
sometimes in another. Then follows the ordinary routine of 
observances, [by the officiating Brahman ;] sprinklings of the 
idol with holy water ; rinsings of its mouth ; washings of its 
feet ; wi pings of it with a dry cloth ; thro wings of flowers and 
green leaves over it ; adornings of it with gaudy ornaments ; 
exhalings of perfume ; alternate tinklings and plasterings of the 
sacred bell with the ashes of sandal wood ; mutterings of invo- 
cation for temporal blessings ; and a winding up of the whole 
with the lowliest act of prostration, in which the worshipper 
stretches himself at full length, disposing his body in such a 
manner as at once to touch the ground with the eight principal 
parts of his body, viz., the feet, the thighs, the hands, the breast, 
the mouth, the nose, the eyes, and the forehead ! 

Then succeeds a round of carousals and festivity. The spec- 
tators are entertained with fruits and sweetmeats. Guests of 
distinction have atar, or the essence of roses, and rich conserves, 
abundantly administered. Musicians, with various hand and 
wind instruments, are introduced into the hall. Numbers of 
abandoned females, gayly attired, and glittering with jewels, are 
hired for the occasion to exhibit their wanton dances, and re- 
hearse their indecent songs in praise of the idol, amid the plau- 
dits of surrounding worshippers. 

Another essential part of the worship consists in the presenta- 
tion of different kinds of ofl*erings to the idol. These offerings, 
after being presented with due form and ceremony, are eventu- 
ally distributed among the attendant priests. No share of them 
is expected to be returned to the worshipper ; so that, on his 
part, it is a real sacrifice. Whatever articles are once offered, 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 11 

become consecrated, and are supposed to have some new and 
valuable qualities thereby imparted to them. Hence the more 
ignorant natives often come craving for a small portion of the 
sacred food, to be carried home, to cure diseases. 

But it is to the almost incredible profusion of the offerings 
presented at such festivals that we would desire to call your 
special attention. In general it may be said that the bulk of 
the people, rich and poor, expend by far the larger moiety of 
their earnings or income on offerings to idols, and the countless 
rites and exhibitions connected with idol worship. At the cel- 
ebration of one festival, a wealthy native has been known to 
offer after this manner — eighty thousand pounds' weight of 
sweetmeats ; eighty thousand pounds' weight of sugar ; a thou- 
sand suits of cloth garments ; a thousand suits of silk ; a thou- 
sand offerings of rice, plantains, and other fruits. On another 
occasion, a wealthy native has been known to have expended 
upwards of thirty thousand pounds sterling on the offerings, 
the observances, and the exhibition, of a single festival ; and 
upwards of ten thousand pounds annually, ever afterwards to 
the termination of his life. Indeed, such is the blindfold zeal 
of these benighted people, that instances are not unfrequent of 
natives of rank and wealth reducing themselves and families to 
poverty by their lavish expenditure in the service of the gods, 
and in upholding the pomp and dignity of their worship. In 
the city of Calcutta alone, at the lowest and most moderate 
estimate, it has been calculated that half a million, at least, is 
annually expended on the celebration of the Durga Pujah 
festival. How vast, how inconceivably vast, then, must be 
the aggregate expended by rich and poor on all the daily, 
weekly, monthly, and annual rites, ceremonies, and festivals, 
held in honor of a countless pantheon of divinities ! 

Ah ! it is when gazing at these heaps of offering, so lavishly 
poured into the treasury of the false gods of heathenism, that 
one is constrained to reflect, in bitterness of spirit, on the mis- 
erable contrast presented by the scanty, stinted, and shrivelled 
offerings of the professed worshippers of the true God in a Chris- 
tian land ! Would that, in this respect, the disciples of Christ 
could be induced to learn a lesson from the blinded votaries of 
Hinduism ! Take the case of a renowned city, the third, in 
point of wealth and commercial importance, in the British em- 
pire ; a city on whose escutcheon and banner is inscribed the 
noble motto, that it is to "flourish by the righteousness of the 



12 DURGA FESTIVAL. 

Word." What has been, on the part of its citizens, the mani- 
festation of a Uberality that must needs astound all Christen- 
dom, and, if it were possible, cause the very universe to 
resound with the never-dying echoes of its fame? Why, 
this great city, whose merchants are princes and the honorable 
of the earth, — this mighty city, that sits as a queen among 
the principalities of the nations, — this celebrated city did, on 
a late occasion, in very truth, contribute the sum of twenty 
thousand pounds to promote, loithhi itself, the cause of that 
Redeemer to whose vicarious sacrifice and mediatorial govern- 
ment it owes existence, and riches, and salvation, — all the 
possessions and comforts of time, — all the prospects and crowns 
of immortality ! Well, be it so ! We at once cheerfully con- 
cede that, compai'ed with the doings of others in this professedly 
Christian lund, this is one of the best and noblest specimens of 
modern benevolence. B^it turn now to benighted Hindustan. 
Look to one of its chief commercial emporia. There, on a 
single festival, in honor of a monstrous image of wood or clay, 
you find upwards of five hundred thousand pounds expended — 
not o?ice, but annually ! After this, talk, if ye will, of your 
liberalities. Boast of them. Eulogize them to the skies. 
Parade them, as munificent, in public journals. Extol them 
beyond measure at your great anniversaries. Would that, when 
next disposed to trumpet forth the praise of your own doings, 
ye would go and proclaim your magnificent contributions to the 
cause of your God and Savior in the presence of the deluded 
heathen, who replenish with free-will offerings the halls of 
their idol Durga. Ah ! methinks that, instead of deigning to 
reply, they might point, in scornful silence, to the multiplied 
tokens and pledges of their own prodigal bounty, and leave 
you to draw an inference which might well cover you with 
confusion and dismay ! For what could the inference be, were 
the silence and symbolic movement rightly interpreted and 
imbodied in words ? What could it be but this ? — "If the 
amount of free-will offerings be a measure of sincerity in our 
religious profession, surely our sincerity must be a hundred fold 
deeper than yours. If extent of sacrifice of worldly substance, 
to which we all so naturally cling, be a measure of our love to 
the object of worship, surely our love to our god, Avhich you 
reckon a poor dumb idol, must be a hundred fold more intense 
than yours towards Him whom you profess to regard as the 
only true God and Savior. If visible fruits be the test of reality 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 13 

of faith, surely our faith in the truth of our religion must be a 
hundred fold stronger than your faith in the truth of yours. 
Indeed, you seem to have scarcely any faith at all. And the 
little you do has the appearance of being designed to save you 
from the charge of open infidelity, rather than to indicate a 
heartfelt interest in promoting the cause and honor of your 
God." If a rebuke so cutting, from a quarter so unexpected, 
do not lead to amendment and increase in your Christian lib- 
eralities, rest assured that these poor blinded idolaters, whom 
you affect to view with pity and compassion, will one day rise 
up in judgment and condemn you. 

The subject of offerings is not yet exhausted. At the annual 
festival of Durga, there are also bloody sacrifices presented. The 
number of these, though in general little thought of or little 
known, is very remarkable. When infidel scoffers have read in 
the Bible of the multitude of sacrifices constantly offered, — 
more especially when they read of King Solomon, on one mem- 
orable occasion, sacrificing twenty-two thousand oxen and a 
hundred and twenty thousand sheep, — they have not scrupled 
to denounce the narrative as wholly beyond the pale of historic 
credibility — as partaking so much of the fabulous and the 
marvellous as seriously to damage the authenticity of the entire 
record that contains it. Ignorant men ! ignorant of the manners 
and customs of Oriental nations, and, ever true to the char- 
acter of your race, presumptuous in proportion to your igno- 
rance ! Were ye transported to the shores of Hindustan now, 
ye would find, up to this day, multitudes of sacrifices constantly 
offered at temples and in private houses ; in single cases almost 
rivalling, and, collectively and nationally, vastly out-rivalling in 
number the thousands and tens of thousands once offered by 
the Hebrew monarch, at a time when the sovereign reckoned 
it no impiety to allocate the resources of a state to the rearing 
of altars and temples to Jehovah, Lord of hosts ; nor. as the 
most exalted member of the visible church, felt it any dishonor 
for a season to drop the functions of royalty, and, assuming part 
of the office of high priest, solemnly engage in conducting the 
devotional exercises of a national worship. And if the over- 
whelming evidence addressed to your understandings had failed 
to convince you of the veracity of the inspired penmen, must 
not the testimony of sense, as to the vast numbers of Hindu 
sacrifices, extort from you a confession in favor of the antece- 



14 DURGA FESTIVAL. 

dent credibility of the Jewish record in the narration of numbers 
not more than parallel in magnitude ? 

At a single temple in the neighborhood of Calcutta, the ordi- 
nary number of daily sacrifices averages between fifty and a 
hundred he-goats and rams, besides a proportion of buffaloes. 
On Saturdays and Mondays, which happen to be days particu- 
larly sacred to the divinity worshipped there, the number of 
sacrifices is doubled or trebled; while, on great festival occa- 
sions, the number is increased from hundreds to thousands. At 
the annual festival of Durga, there are hundreds of families, in 
the Calcutta district alone, that sacrifice severally scores of 
animals; many present their hecatombs; and some occasionally 
their thousands. It is within the present half century that the 
rajah of Nudiya, in the north of Bengal, offered a large number 
of sheep, and goats, and buffaloes, on the first day of the feast, 
and vowed to double the offering on each succeeding day, so 
that the number sacrificed in all amounted, in the aggregate, to 
upwards of sixty-five thousand! Mr. Ward states, that the 
rajah " loaded boats with the bodies, and sent them to the 
neighboring Brahmans, but they could not devour or dispose of 
them fast enough, and great numbers were thrown away." 

Returning to the scene in the house of a wealthy native on 
the first great day of the festival: — After the worship, and the 
offerings, and the dancings in honor of the goddess, have been 
concluded, the votaries proceed, after midnight, to the presenta- 
tion of animals in sacrifice. It is in the central roofless court or 
area of the house that the process of slaughter is usually carried 
on. There a strong upright post is fastened in the ground, 
excavated at the top somewhat like a double-pronged fork. In 
this excavation the neck of the victim is inserted, and made fast 
by a transverse pin above. Close at hand stands the hired exe- 
cutioner, usually a blacksmith, with his broad, heavy axe. And 
woe be to him if he fail in severing the head at one stroke ! 
Such failure would betide ruin and disgrace to himself, and 
entail the most frightful disaster on his employer and family ! 

Each animal is duly consecrated by the officiating Brahman, 
who marks its horns and forehead with red lead, — sprinkles it, 
for the sake of purifjdng, with Ganges water, — adorns its neck 
with a necklace of leaves, and its brow with a garland of flowers, 
— and reads various incantations in its ears, adding,' " O Durga, 
I sacrifice this animal to thee, that I may dwell in thy heaven 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 16 

for so many years." With similar ceremonies, each sacrificial 
victim, whether goat, sheep, or buffalo, is dedicated and slain, 
amid the din and hubbub of human voices. The heads and 
part of the blood are then carried in succession to the hall with- 
in, and ranged before the image, each head being there sur- 
mounted with a lighted lamp. Over them the officiating 
Brahman repeats certain prayers, utters appropriate incanta- 
tions, and formally presents them as an acceptable feast to 
the goddess. Other meat-offerings and drink-offerings are also 
presented, with a repetition of the proper formulas. And, last of 
all, on a small, square altar, made of clean, dry sand, burnt-offer- 
ings of flowers, or grass, or leaves, or rice, or clarified butter, are 
deposited — with prayers, that all remaining sins may be de- 
stroyed by the sacrificial fire. This naturally leads us to 
answer a question that is often asked, namely. What becomes 
of the flesh meat of so many animals ? Part of it is offered on 
the altar as a burnt-sacrifice. But the larger part of it always, 
and not unfrequently the whole, is devoured as food. The 
Brahmans of course have their choice ; and the remainder is 
distributed in large quantities among the inferior castes. As it 
has been consecrated by being offered to the goddess, it is law- 
ful for all who choose to partake of it. 

It is impossible to note all the variations in the different 
modes in which the Durga Pujah is celebrated by the different 
castes and sects. Some individuals expend the largest propor- 
tion in peace-oflferings, and meat and drink-offerings ; others in 
bloody sacrifices and burnt-offerings : some in the dances, and 
the tinsel garnishings, and fire-work exhibitions ; and others in 
entertaining and giving presents to Brahmans. The disciples 
of the numerous sect of Vishnu, though they celebrate the fes- 
tival with great pomp, present no bloody offerings to Durga ; 
instead of slaughtering animals, pumpkins, or some other 
substitute, are split in two and presented to the goddess. 

The multitudinous rites and ceremonies of the first day and 
night of the festival being now nearly concluded, numbers of 
old and young, rich and poor, male and female, rush into the 
open area that is streaming with the blood of animals slain in 
sacrifice. They seize a portion of the gory dust and mud, and 
with the sacred compost literally bedaub their bodies, dan- 
cing and prancing all the while with almost savage ferocity. 
With their bodies thus bespattered, and their minds excited into 
frenzy, multitudes now pour into the streets — some with 



16 DURGA FESTIVAL. 

blazing torches, others with musical instruments ; and all, 
twisting their frames into the most wanton attitudes, and vocif- 
erating the most indecent songs, rush to and fro, reeling, shout- 
ing, and raving, more wildly than the troops of " iron-speared " 
and " ivy-leaved " Amazons, that were wont, in times of old, to 
cause the woods and the mountains of Greece to resound with 
the frantic orgies of Bacchus. 

For two days and two nights more, there is a renewal of the 
same round of worship, and rites, and ceremonies, and dances, 
and sacrifices, and Bacchanalian fury. 

As the morning of the first day was devoted to the consecra- 
tion of the images, so the morning of the fourth is occupied with 
the grand ceremony of unconsecrating them. He, who had the 
divine power of bringing down the goddess to inhabit each tab- 
ernacle of wood or clay, has also the power of dispossessing it 
of her animating presence. Accordingly, the officiating Brah- 
man, surrounded by the members of the family, engages, amid 
various rites, and sprinklings, and incantations, to send the divin- 
ity back to her native heaven ; concluding with a farewell 
address, in which he tells the goddess that he expects her to 
accept of all his services, and to return again to renew her 
favors on the following year. All now unite in muttering a 
sorrowful adieu to the divinity, and many seem aff"ected even to 
the shedding of tears. 

Soon afterwards a crowd assembles, exhibiting habiliments 
bespotted with divers hues and colors. The image is carried 
forth to the street. It is planted on a portable stage, or platform, 
and then raised on men's shoulders. As the temporary local 
abode of the departed goddess, it is still treated with profound 
honor and respect. As the procession advances along the street, 
accompanied with music and songs, amid clouds of heated dust, 
you see human beings — yes, full-grown beings, wearing all 
the outward prerogatives of the human form — marching on 
either side, and waving their chouries, or long, hairy brushes, to 
wipe away the dust, and ward off" the mosquitoes or flies, that 
might otherwise desecrate or annoy the senseless image. But 
whither does the procession tend? To the banks of the 
Ganges — most sacred of streams. For what purpose? Fol- 
low it, and you will see. As you approach the river, you every 
where behold numbers of similar processions, from town and 
country, before and behind, on the right and on the left. You 
cast your eyes along the banks. As far as vision can reach, 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 17 

they seem literally covered. It is one liviitg, moving mass — 
dense, vast, interminable. The immediate margin being too 
confined for the contact of such a teeming throng, hundreds and 
thousands of boats, of every size and every form, are put in requi- 
sition. A processional party steps on board, and each vessel is 
speedily launched on the broad expanse of the waters. The 
bosom of the stream seems, for miles, to be converted into the 
crowd, and the movement, and the harlequin exhibitions, of an 
immense floating fair. When the last rites and ceremonies are 
terminated, all the companies of image-carriers suddenly fall 
upon their images. They break them to pieces, and violently 
dash the shivered fragments into the depths of the passing 
stream. But who can depict the wondrous spectacle? — the 
numbers without number ; the fantastic equipages of every rank 
and grade ; the variegated costumes of every caste and sect ; 
the strangely indecorous bodily gestures of deluded worship- 
pers ; the wild and frenzied mental excitement of myriads 
of spectators intoxicated with the scene ; the breaking, crash- 
ing, and sinking, of hundreds of dispossessed images, along 
the margin and over the surface of the mighty stream, — amid 
the loud, shrill dissonance of a thousand untuneful instruments, 
commingled with the still more stunning peals of ten thousand 
thousand human voices ! Here, language entirely fails. Imagi- 
nation itself must sink down with wings collapsed, utterly 
bafiled in the efl"ort to conceive the individualities and the group- 
ings of an assemblage composed of such varied magnitudes. 

Towards evening the multitudes return to their homes. 
Return, you will ask, for the purpose of refreshment and 
repose ? No ; but to engage in fresh scenes of boisterous mirth 
and sensual revelry. But when these are at length brought to 
a close, is there not a season of respite ? No : all hearts, all 
thoughts, are instantaneously turned towards the next incoming 
festival, in honor of some other divinity ; and the necessary 
preparations are at once set on foot to provide for its due cele- 
bration. And thus it has been for ages past ; and thus it may 
be for ages to come ; — unless the Christian people of these 
lands awake from the sleep of an ungodly, carnal security ; 
arise from the deep slumber of sottish, selfish, luxurious enjoy- 
ment ; and come forward, far beyond the standard of any 
present example, to advance the Redeemer's cause. O ye who 
do well to dwell at ease in your ceiled houses, when every 
where the temple of the Lord lies waste ! — ye who do well to 



18 DURGA FESTIVAL. 

eat, and drink, and be merry, when the multitudes of the nations 
are up in arms against your Sovereign Lord and Redeemer, — 
up in arms against the true peace and everlasting happiness of 
their own souls, — those precious souls that will never die ! — 
ye may wholly resist every appeal that is thus addressed to you 
at a distance, in words ; but, frozen-hearted as many of you 
are, could ye, we would ask, wholly resist the thrilling appeal 
which the direct exhibition of the terrible reality would ad- 
dress to you ? 

When we have stood on the banks of the Ganges, sur- 
rounded by deluded multitudes engaged in ablutions, in order 
to cancel the guilt and wipe away the stains of transgressions ; 
here assailed by the groans of the sick and the dying, stretched 
on the wet banks beneath "a hot and copper sky," and there 
stunned by loud vociferations, in the name of worship, addressed 
to innumerable gods ; on the one hand, the flames of many a 
funeral pile blazing in view, and, on the other, the loathsome 
spectacle of human carcasses floating, unheeded and unknown 
amid the dash of the oar and the merry songs of the boat- 
men; and when we felt our own solitude in the midst of 
the teeming throng, — a cold sensation of horror has crept 
through the soul, and the heart has well nigh sunk and failed, 
through the overbearing impressions of sense, and the despond- 
ing weakness of faith. " Gracious God," have we exclaimed, 
" how marvellous is the extent of thy long-suffering and for- 
bearance ! What earthly monarch could, for a single hour, 
endure the thousand thousandth part of the indignities that are 
here daily offered to thy throne and majesty, O thou King of 
kings ! And yet, thus it has been for ages ! Lord, how long 
will it continue to be ? Forever ? No ; no ! " When we look at 
the apparently unchanged past, and survey the apparently un- 
changeable present, the review and contemplation seem to sound 
the death-knell of hope, that would cradle us in black despair. 
But when we glance at the future, as portrayed in the " sure 
word of prophecy," we there learn to realize the mystery of 
"hoping against hope." From these polluted waters of a turbid 
earthly stream, we turn the eye of faith to the waters of gospel 
grace, which are seen, in the prophetic vision, to issue from under 
the threshold of the temple of Zion eastward. They swell and 
deepen into a river. It is the river of life. Wherever it rolls, 
disease, barrenness, and death disappear. Within it every thing 
moves and is healed. Its banks also are shaded with trees, — 



DURGA FESTIVAL. 



19 



they are trees of life, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the 
fruit thereof ever be consumed. Roll on, thou life-giving river ! 
In Judah's land, on Calvary's mount, where the great Redeemer 
suffered, bled, and died, was thy fountain first opened. Roll on, 
thou life-giving river ! Long hast thou been in reaching this 
dreary moral waste. But the time appointed, even the set time, is 
come. Now, roll on and overflow the sterile wilderness with 
thy refreshing waters. Let life and health, verdure and beauty, 
spring forth from thy gladdening presence — earnests of mil- 
lennial glory — harbingers of celestial bliss ! 




THE CHARAK PUJAH OR KALI FESTIVAL. 




Consigning an Image of Kali to the Ganges. 

Next to the annual festival of Diirga. one of the most pop- 
ular in Eastern India is that of the Chaiak Piijah. 

Strictly and properly, this festival is held in honor of Shiva, 
in his character of Maha Kala ; or Time, the great destroyer 
of all things. In this character, his personified energy, or 
consort, is Parvati, under the distinction and appropriate form of 
Maha Kali. In the annual festival held in honor of the former, 
the worship of the latter appears at all times to have been blended ; 
and, in the lapse of ages, the female form of Kali has become 
a far more important and formidable personage, in the eyes of 
the multitude, than the male form of Maha Kala, and often en- 
grosses more than a proportionate share of the homage and 
adoration of deluded worshippers. To save, therefore, the tedi- 
ousness of circumlocution, and the intricacy of a perpetual 
double reference, we must confine ourselves to a brief notice of 
the goddess Kali, as connected with the celebration of the 
Charak Pujah. 

It is proper, however, to state, that Brahmans, Kshattryas, and 
the Vaishyas, take no active part in the actual celebration of the 
rites peculiar to this festival. Most of them, however, contrib- 
ute largely towards the expense of it, and countenance the 



KALI FESTIVAL. 21 

whole of the proceedings as applauding spectators ; though some 
of them, in words, profess to disapprove of many of the prac- 
tices. 

Of all the Hindu divinities, this goddess is the most cruel and 
revengeful. Such, according to some of the sacred legends, is 
her thirst for blood, that, — being unable, in one of her forms, 
on a particular occasion, to procure any of the giants for her 
prey, — in order to quench her savage appetite, she " actuUy cut 
her own throat, that the blood issuing thence might spout into 
her mouth." Of the goddess, — represented in the monstrous 
attitude of supporting her own half-severed head in the left 
hand, with streams of blood gushing from the throat into the 
mouth, — images may this day be seen in some districts of 
Bengal. The supreme delight of this divinity, therefore, con- 
sists in cruelty and torture ; her ambrosia is the flesh of living 
votaries and sacrificed victims ; and her sweetest nectar, the 
copious effusion of their blood. 

The Kalika Parana, one of the divine writings, is chiefly 
devoted to a recital of the diflerent modes of worshipping and 
appeasing this ferocious divinity. If, for example, a devotee 
should scorch some member of his body by the application of 
a burning lamp, the act would prove most acceptable to the god- 
dess. If he should draw some blood from himself, and present 
it, the libation would be still more delectable. If he should cut 
off" a portion of his own flesh, and present it as a burnt sacri- 
fice, the ofl'ering would be most grateful of all. If the devotee 
should present lohole burnt-off'erings upon the altar, saying, — 
" Hrang, bring, Kali, Kali! — O! horrid-toothed goddess, eat, 
eat ; destroy all the malignant ; cut with this axe ; bind, bind ; 
seize, seize ; drink this blood ; spheng, spheng ; secure, secure ! 
— Salutation to Kali!" — these will prove acceptable in pro- 
portion to the supposed importance of the animated beings sac- 
rificed. By the blood drawn from fishes and tortoises the 
goddess is pleased one month ; a crocodile's blood will please 
her three ; that of certain wild animals, nine ; that of a bull or 
a guana, a year ; an antelope's or wild boar's, twelve years ; 
a buff'alo's, rhinoceros's, or tiger's, a hundred ; a lion's, a rein- 
deer's, or a mail's, (mark the combination,) a thousand; but 
by the blood of three men slain in sacrifice, she is pleased a 
hundred thouscmd years! Amid all the voluminous codes of 
Hinduism, there is not a section more loathsomely minute, 
more hideously revolting, than the sanguinary chapter devoted 



22 KALI FESTIVAL. 

to the description of the rites and formularies to be observed at 
the sacrifice of human victims. 

Under the native dynasties, it cannot be doubted that human 
sacrifices were very largely offered. And, even now, when this 
species of sacrifice has been condemned, and declared to be pun- 
ishable as murder, by the British government, clearly authentica- 
ted cases do still occasionally occur. During our own brief sojourn 
in Calcutta, a human victim was sacrificed at a temple of Kali 
in its immediate neighborhood. The sacrificer was seized by 
the officers of justice, and capitally punished. About the same 
time, the governor-general felt himself called upon to strip a 
rajah, in the east of Bengal, of his independent rights, because, 
in direct violation of existing treaties, he had carried off three 
British subjects to be offered in sacrifice to Kali ! 

Indeed, this divinity is the avowed patroness of almost all 
the most atrocious outrages against the peace of society. Is 
there in India, as in other lands, a set of lawless men who, 
despising the fruits of honest industry, earn their livelihood 
by the plunder of their neighbors' property ? At the hour of 
midnight, the gang of desperadoes will resort to some spot 
where is reared an image of Kali. There they engage in reli- 
gious ceremonies, and there they offer bloody sacrifices to pro- 
pitiate the favor and secure the protection of the goddess. 
Worshipping the instrument that is to cut through the wall of 
the house intended to be attacked, they address it in a prescribed 
form of words, saying, — " O instrument, formed by the god- 
dess ! Kali commands thee to cut a passage into the house ; to 
cut through stones, bones, bricks, wood, the earth, and moun- 
tains ; and cause the dust thereof to be carried away by the 
wind! " In full assurance of the divine blessing, and with un- 
wavering faith in the divine protection, they hasten to the 
execution of their nefarious designs. How must the very 
foundations of even ordinary moral duties be swept away in a 
land where theft and plunder can be systematically carried on 
under the special patronage of the gods ! 

Again, is there in India, — as there is not, we believe, in any 
other land on the surface of the globe, — a still more lawless 
race of men, — a close, compact, confederate fraternity, — whose 
irresistible fate and hereditary profession it is to subsist by 
murder? These, too, well known under the name of Thugs, 
find a ready and potent protectress in Kali. To the divinely- 
revealed will and command of this goddess, they universally 



KALI FESTIVAL. 23 

ascribe their origin, their institutions, their social laws, and their 
ritual observances. Intense devotion to Kali is the mysterious 
link that unites them in a bond of brotherhood that is indisso- 
luble ; and with a secrecy which, for generations, has eluded 
the efforts of successive governments to detect them. It is 
under her special auspices that all their sanguinary depredations 
have been planned, prosecuted, and carried into execution. It 
is the thorough incorporation of a feeling of assurance in her aid, 
with the entire framework of their mental and moral being, 
that has imparted to their union all its strength and all its terror. 
In their sense of the term, they are of all men the most super- 
stitiously exact, the most devoutly religious, in the performance 
of divine worship. In honor of their guardian deity, there is a 
temple dedicated at Bindachul, near Mirzapur, to the north of 
Bengal. There, religious ceremonies are constantly performed, 
and thousands of animals offered in sacrifice. When a band of 
these leagued murderers, whose individuality and union have 
for ages been preserved in integrity, resolve to issue forth on 
their worse than marauding expedition, deliberately intent on 
imbruing their hands in the blood of their fellows, they first 
betake themselves to the temple of the goddess : present their 
prayers, and supplications, and offerings there ; and vow, in the 
event of success, to consecrate to her service a large proportion 
of the booty. Should they not succeed, — should they even be 
seized, convicted, and condemned to die, — their confidence in 
Kali does not waver ; their faith does not stagger. They ex- 
onerate the goddess from all blame. They ascribe the cause of 
failure wholly to themselves. They assume all the guilt of 
having neglected some of the divinely prescribed forms. And 
they laugh to scorn the idea that any evil could possibly have 
befallen them, had they been faithful in the observance of all 
the divinely-appointed rules of their sanguinary craft. How 
must the chief corner-stone of ordinary morality be shaken, in 
a land where religion is so versatile as to throw the ample 
shield of divine encouragement and reward over the most mur- 
derous banditti that ever appeared in human form! 

If such be the general character of this goddess, what are 
you to expect of a festival held in honor of her lord, in his 
character as the great destroyer, — a festival in which she, too, 
is adored, as his destructive energy! 

Most of the sectaries that embrace the form of Maha Kala 
as their guardian deity — belonging chiefly to the class of Shu- 



24 KALI FESTIVAL. 

dras — are busied for several days before the festival with various 
initiatory ceremonies of purification, abstinence, and exercises 
of devotion ; and those who wish to earn great merit on the 
occasion are engaged in preparatory operations for a whole 
month. 

The festival itself derives its name of Charak Pujah from 
chakra, a discus or wheel, in allusion to the circle performed 
in the rite of swinging, which constitutes so very prominent a 
part of the anniversary observances. An upright pole, twenty 
or thirty feet in height, is planted in the ground. Across the 
top of it, moving freely on a pin or pivot, is placed horizontally 
another long pole. From one end of this transverse beam is a 
rope suspended, with two hooks affixed to it. To the other ex- 
tremity is fastened another rope, which hangs loosely towards 
the ground. The devotee comes forward, and prostrates him- 
self in the dust. The hooks are then run through the fleshy 
parts of his back, near the shoulders. A party, holding the 
rope at the other side, immediately begin to run round with 
considerable velocity. By this means the wretched dupe of 
superstition is hoisted aloft into the air, and violently whirled 
round and round. The torture he may continue to endure for a 
longer or shorter period, according to his own free-will ; only, 
this being reckoned one of the holiest of acts, the longer he 
can endure the torture the greater the pleasure conveyed to the 
deity whom he serves ; the greater the portion of merit accru- 
ing to himself; and, consequently, the brighter the prospect of 
future reward. The time usually occupied averages from ten 
minutes to half an hour ; and as soon as one has ended, 
another candidate is ready, — aspiring to earn the like merit and 
distinction. And thus, on one tree, from five to ten or fifteen 
may be swung in the course of a day. Of these swinging-posts 
there are hundreds and thousands simultaneously in operation in 
the province of Bengal. They are always erected in the most 
conspicuous parts of the towns and villages, and are surrounded 
by vast crowds of noisy spectators. On the very streets of the 
native city of Calcutta, many of these horrid swings are annu- 
ally to be seen, and scores around the suburbs. It not unfre- 
quently happens that, from the extreme rapidity of the motion, 
the ligaments of the back give way, in which case the poor devo- 
tee is tossed to a distance, and dashed to pieces. A loud wail of . 
commiseration, you now suppose, will be raised in behalf of the 
unhappy man who has thus fallen a martyr to his religious 



KALI FESTIVAL. 25 

enthusiasm. No such thing ! Idolatry is cruel as the grave. 
Instead of sympathy or compassion, a feeling of detestation and 
abhorrence is excited towards him. By the principles of their 
faith, he is adjudged to have been a desperate criminal in a for- 
mer state of being ; and he has now met with this violent 
death, in the present birth, as a righteous retribution, on account 
of egregious sins committed in a former ! 

The evening of the same day is devoted to another practice 
almost equally cruel. It consists in the devotees' throwing them- 
selves down, from a high wall, the second story of a house, or a 
temporary scaffolding often twenty or thirty feet in height, 
upon iron spikes or knives that are thickly stuck in a large bag 
or mattress of straw. But these sharp instruments being fixed 
rather loosely, and in a position sloping forward, the greater 
part of the thousands that fall upon them dexterously contrive 
to escape without serious damage. Many, however, are often 
cruelly mangled and lacerated ; and, in the case of some, the 
issue proves speedily fatal. 

At night, numbers of the devotees sit down in the open air, 
and pierce the skin of their foreheads ; and in it, as a socket, 
place a small rod of iron, to which is suspended a lamp that is 
kept burning till the dawn of day, while the lamp-bearers 
rehearse the praises of their favorite deity. 

Again, before the temple, bundles of thorns and other fire- 
wood are accumulated, among which the devotees roll them- 
selves uncovered. The materials are next raised into a pile, 
and set on fire. Then the devotees briskly dance over the 
blazing embers, and fling them into the air with their naked 
hands, or toss them at one another. 

Some have their breasts, arms, and other parts, stuck entirely 
full of pins, about the " thickness of small nails, or packing- 
needles." Others betake themselves to a vertical wheel, twenty 
or thirty feet in diameter, and raised considerably above the 
ground. They bind themselves to the outer rim, in a sitting 
posture, so that, when the wheel rolls round, their heads point 
alternately to the zenith and the nadir. 

But it were endless to pursue the diversity of these self- 
inflicted cruelties into all their details. There is one, however, 
of so very singular a character, that it must not be left un- 
noticed. If the problem were proposed to any member of our 
own community to contrive some other distinct species of tor- 
ture, — amid the boundless variety which the most fertile ima- 



26 KALI FESTITAL. 

ginatjon might figure to itself, probably the one now to be de- 
scribed would not be found. Some of these deluded votaries en- 
ter into a vow. With one hand they cover their under-lips with 
a layer of wet earth or mud ; on this, with the other hand, they 
deposit some small grains, usually of mustard-seed. They then 
stretch themselves flat on their backs, — exposed to the drip- 
pmg dews of night and the blazing sun by day. And their 
vow is, that from that fixed position they will not stir, — will 
neither move, nor turn, nor eat, nor drink, — till the seeds planted 
on the lips begin to sprout or germinate. This vegetable pro- 
cess usually takes place on the third or fourth day ; after which, 
being released from the vow, they arise, as they dotingly im- 
agine and believe, laden with a vast accession of holiness and 
supererogatory merit. 

To the south of Calcutta is a spacious, level plain, between 
two and three miles in length, and a mile, or a mile and a half, 
in breadth. On the west it is washed b)'' the sacred Ganges, 
on whose margin, about the middle of the plain, Fort William 
rears its ramparts and battlements. Along the north is a mag- 
nificent range of buildings, — the Supreme Court, the Town 
Hall, with other public edifices, — and, in the centre, most con- 
spicuous of all, the arcades, and columns, and lofty dome of 
Government House. Along the whole of the eastern side, at 
short intervals, is a succession of palace-like mansions, occu- 
pied as the abodes of the more opulent of the European residents. 
In front of this range, facing the west, and between it, there- 
fore, and the plain, is the broadest and most airy street in Cal- 
cutta, well known under the name of Chowringhee. Chiefly to 
the north of the plain, and partly to the east, beyond the ranges 
of European offices and residences, lies the native city, — stretch- 
ing its intricate mass of narrow lanes, and red brick houses, and 
" hive-like " bamboo huts, over an extent of many miles, and 
teeming with half a million of human beings! At a short dis- 
tance from the south-east corner of the plain, across a narrow 
belt of low suburban cottages, lies the celebrated temple ©f Kali- 
Ghat. The grand direct thoroughfare towards it, from the native 
city, is along the Chowringhee road. 

Thither, early, before sunrise, on the morning of the great day 
of the Charak festival, we once hastened to witness the extraor- 
dinary spectacle. 

From all the lanes and alleys leading from the native city, 
multitudes were pouring into the Chowringhee road, which 



KALI FESTIVAL. 27 

seemed at every point to symbolize the meeting of the waters, — 
realizing, through its entire length, the image of a mighty con- 
fluence of innumerable living streams. The mere spectators 
could easily be distinguished from the special devotees. The 
former were seen standing, or walking along with eager gaze ; 
arrayed in their gayest holiday dress, exhibiting every combi- 
nation and variety of the snow-white garb and tinsel glitter of 
Oriental costume. The latter came marching forward in small 
isolated groups, — each group averaging, in number, from half- 
a-dozen to twelve or fifteen, and constituted somewhat after 
this manner : Most of the party have their loose robes and 
foreheads plentifully besprinkled with vermilion or rose-pink. 
Two or three of them are decked in speckled or party-colored 
garments, uttering ludicrous, unmeaning sounds, and playing 
off all sorts of antic gestures, not unlike the merry-andrews 
on the stage of a country fair. Two or three, with garlands of 
flowers hanging about their neck, or tied round the head, have 
their sides transpierced with iron rods, which project in front, 
and meet at an angular point, to which is affixed a small vessel in 
the form of a shovel. Two or three, covered with ashes, carry 
in their hands iron spits or rods of different lengths, small bam- 
boo canes or hookah tubes, hard-twisted cords, or living snakes 
whose fangs had been extracted, — bending their limbs into un- 
sightly attitudes, and chanting legendary songs. Two or three 
more are the bearers of musical instruments — horned trumpets, 
gongs, tinkling cymbals, and large, hoarse drums surmounted 
with towering bunches of black and white ostrich feathers, 
which keep waving and nodding not unlike the heaving, sombre 
plumes of a hearse ; and all of them belabored as furiously as 
if the impression were, that the louder the noise, and the more 
discordant the notes, the better and more charming the music. 
Thus variously constituted, the groups of devotees were pro- 
ceeding along. On looking behind, one group was seen follow- 
ing after another as far as the eye could reach ; on looking 
before, one group was seen preceding another, as far as the eye 
could reach ; — like wave after wave, in interminable succession. 
Besides these groups of worshippers, who are reckoned pre- 
eminent in holiness and merit, there are others that advance in 
processions, bearing various pageants, flags, banners, models 
of temples, images of gods, and other mythological figures, with 
portable stages on which men and women are engaged in ridic- 
ulous and often worse than ridiculous pantomimic performances. 



28' KALI FESTIVAL. 

Hundreds of these processions spread over the southern side of 
the plain, presenting a spectacle so vast and varied — so singular 
and picturesque — that the pencil of the most skilful artist 
would not be dishonored if it failed in adequately represent- 
ing it. 

At the extremity of Chowringhee, the road towards the temple 
narrows considerably. The throng is now so dense that one is 
literally carried along. On approaching the precincts of the 
sacred shrine, it is found surrounded by a court and high wall. 
After entering the principal gate, which is on the western side, 
the temple itself starts up full in view. To the south of it is a 
spacious open hall or portico, elevated several feet above the 
ground, and surrounded by a flight of steps, above which rise 
a range of pillars that support the roof. Between the portico 
and the temple is a narrow pathway, along which the stream 
of spectators was flowing ; while the groups of the devotees 
marched round the side farthest from the temple. Being of the 
number of the spectators, we mingled with the teeming throng 
that pressed on, with maddening frenzy, to obtain a glimpse of 
the idol. Here one and another would start aside, and knock 
their heads against the temple wall or brick pavement, mutter- 
ing incantations to command the attention and attract the favor 
of the goddess. It may here be noticed, in passing, that a tem- 
ple in India is not, like a Christian church, a place for the disci- 
ples to assemble in and engage in reasonable worship ; but it 
is ordinarily designed as merely a receptacle for the senseless 
block of the idol, and a company of Brahmans, as its guardian 
attendants. Hence, as there is not much occasion for light, 
there are few or no windows. The light of day is usually ad- 
mitted only by the front door, when thrown wide open. Dark- 
ness is thus commingled with light in the idol cell, and tends 
to add to the mysteriousness of the scene. The multitudes all 
congregate without ; but there is no preaching in their " halls 
of convocation ; " no devotional exercises to raise the soul on 
the wings of heavenly contemplation ; no instructions in the 
knowledge of the true God or the plan of a complete salvation ; 
no inculcation of motives to lead to the forsaking of sin ; no 
animated exhortations to the cultivation of virtue and piety: 
all, all, is one unchanging round of sacrifice and ceremony — of 
cruelty, and sport, and lifeless form. 

Standing immediately opposite the temple gate, we saw on 
either side stationed, as usual, a party of Brahmans, to receive 



KALI FESTIVAL, 29 

the proffered gifts. On one side lay a heap of flowers, that had 
been consecrated by being carried within and presented to the 
goddess ; on the other side, a large heap of money, — copper, and 
silver, and gold, — that had been contributed as free-will offerings. 
To the spectators, as they passed along, the Brahnians were 
presenting consecrated flowers, which were eagerly carried off 
as precious relics ; and, in exchange for them, the joyous vo- 
taries threw down what money they possessed. And this they 
did as profusely as it was assuredly done cheerfully and with- 
out a grudge. Ah, here again were we painfully reminded of 
the state of things, as regards liberality on principle, in Christian 
lands. What a contrast to our meagre and half-extorted contri- 
butions, in the cause of Christian benevolence, was presented by 
the spectacle at the temple of Kali-Ghat ! '' What ! " was one 
led to exclaim, — " what ! is it really so, that error is fraught 
with a mightier charm than truth? — that a foul and sanguinary 
superstition can operate on the soul more effectually than the 
benign religion of heaven ? — that ignorance is more powerful 
than divine knowledge ? — that heathenish custom is superior 
in efficacy to enlightened principle? — and that the fear of a 
dumb idol can exert a more potent influence than the love of a 
bleeding, dying Savior ? Ah, if this be so, what can our in- 
ference be, except that, amongst us, almost every one ought to 
bear about him a frontlet between his eyes, inscribed with the 
motto, 'Profession, not principle! ' — and that almost all, hav- 
ing a name to live, are nevertheless dead in spiritual lethargy 
and slumber, and deaf to the most sacred claims of duty towards 
God and man ! " 

And one's wonder could not be diminished, when he looked 
within the temple, and, in the midst of the "darkness visible," 
beheld the horrid block of the idol that had succeeded in con- 
quering men's selfishness, and in turning the stagnant pool of 
grasping covetousness into a running stream of lavish liberality. 
The figure within this temple is, in several of its parts, for what 
reason we know not, somewhat incomplete ; but it is still suf- 
ficiently frightful and hideous. In the sacred legends the god- 
dess is constantly described, and, in the thousands of images 
that are annually made of her, she is almost uniformly delin- 
eated, as a female of black or dark-blue complexion, dancing 
savagely on the body of her own husband. She is represented 
with four arms, having in one an exterminating sword, and 
in another a human head held fast by the hair ; a third points 



30 KALI FESTIVAL. 

downwards, " indicating the destruction that surrounds her," 
and the fourth is raised upwards, " in allusion to the future re- 
generation of nature by a new creation." She is represented 
with wild, dishevelled hair, reaching to her feet. Her counte- 
nance is most ferocious. Her tongue protrudes from a distorted 
mouth, and hangs over the chin. She has three eyes, red and 
fiery, one of which glares in her forehead. Her lips and eye- 
brows are streaked with blood, and a crimson torrent is stream- 
ing down her breast. She has ear-rings in her ears ; but what 
are they? — they are the carcasses of some hapless victims of 
her fury. She has a girdle round the waist ; but what is it ? 
— it is a girdle of bloody hands, said to have been cut off the 
wounded bodies of her prostrate foes. She has a necklace 
round the neck ; but what is it ? — it is a necklace of ghastly 
skulls, said to have been cut off the thousands of giants and 
others slain in her battles. And such is the monster-divinity, 
who, on that day, calls forth the shouts, and acclamations, and 
free-will offerings, of myriads of adoring worshippers ! 

Passing now to the eastern side of the court, we soon saw 
what the groups of devotees were to be engaged in. Towards 
the wall there were stationed several blacksmiths, with sharp 
instruments in their hands. Those of a particular group, that 
carried the rods, canes, and other implements, now came for- 
ward. One would stretch out his side, and, getting it instantly 
pierced through, in would pass one of his rods or canes. An- 
other would hold out his arm, and, getting it perforated, in 
would pass one of his iron spits or tubes. A third would pro- 
trude his tongue, and getting it, too, bored through, in would 
pass one of his cords or serpents. And thus, all of a group that 
desired it had themselves variously transpierced or perforated. 
When these had finished, another group was waiting in read- 
iness to undergo the cruel operation ; and so another and 
another, apparently without end. 

Several groups, then returning, mounted the steps of the por- 
tico in front of the temple, to prepare for their most solemn act 
of worship. But O, how impotent must human language ever 
be in the attempt to convey an adequate impression of the scene 
that followed ! 

Those of the different groups, that carried in front the vessels 
already referred to, now ranged themselves all around the inte- 
rior of the colonnade. All the rest assembled themselves within 
this living circle. On a sudden, at a signal given, commenced 



KALI FESTIVAL. 31 

the bleating, and the lowing, and the struggling, of animals 
slaughtered in sacrifice at the farthest end of the portico ; and 
speedily was the ground made to swim with sacrificial blood. 
At the same moment of time, the vessel-carriers threw upon the 
burning coals in their vessels handfuls of Indian pitch, composed 
of various combustible substances. Instantly ascended the 
smoke, and the flame, and the sulphureous smell. Those who 
had the musical instruments sent forth their loud, and jarring, 
and discordant sounds. And those who were transpierced be- 
gan dancing in the most frantic manner, — pulling backwards 
and forwards, through their wounded members, the rods and the 
canes, the spits and the tubes, the cords and the writhing ser- 
pents, till their bodies seemed streaming with their own blood ! 
All this was carried on simultaneously ; and that, too, within 
a briefer period of time than has now been occupied in the 
feeble and inadequate attempt to describe it ! Again and again 
would the loud shouts ascend from the thousands of applauding 
spectators — shouts of "Victory to Kali! Victory to the great 
KaU! " 

O, as we gazed at the harrowing spectacle, how was the soul, 
by the resistless force of contrast, hurried away to more highly- 
favored climes ! Yes; — standing though we were at the dis- 
tance of fifteen thousand miles from our native land, how did the 
soul, with lightning speed, flee across intervening oceans and con- 
tinents, and, in the chambers of imagery, revive and realize 
the visions of other days ! When we thought of the land of 
our fathers, — when we contrasted the pure, peaceful, soul-ele- 
vating exercises of its Sabbaths, with the scene of infernal rev- 
elries then before our view, — how could we help exclaiming, 
." Surely, if the former be a fit emblem and harbinger of that 
eternal Sabbath which rolls over heaven's bright inhabitants, 
this other scene must be an emblem and harbinger of the rest- 
less tossings of the burning lake ! " And O, is it possible that, if 
Christians were transported hither to gaze, but for a single mo- 
ment, on such a master-triumph of Satanic delusion, — is it con- 
ceivable that they could give sleep to their eyes, or slumber to 
their eyelids, till they entered a vow in heaven to do all that in 
them lay to demolish such a hideous fabric of idolatry and su- 
perstition, and rear the beauteous temple of Christianity upon 
the ruins ? 

In conclusion, therefore, we would, with our whole heart, and 
strength, and soul, call upon all, who profess to be disciples of 
the Lord Jesus, to come forward now "to the help of the Lord, 



32 



KALI FESTIVAL. 



to the help of the Lord against the mighty." We call upon 
you by that wondrous scheme, for the redemption of a ruined 
world, which from all eternity engaged the counsels of the God- 
head, to compassionate the poor, dying, perishing heathen ; — 
not to allow the prince of darkness any longer to trample on his 
miserable victims without control, or drag them as unresisting 
captives along the broad road that leadeth to perdition. We 
call upon you by the miseries of earth, the torments of hell, the 
joys of heaven, — by all that the Savior has done and suffered in 
his vicarious obedience, and agony, and bloody sweat, — to 
come forth now and be instrumental in erecting the standard 
of the cross on the downfall of the crescent and the ruins of 
paganism ; and thus to snatch from the regions of woe the 
souls of many who may be fitted to sing the praises of Jehovah 
and the Lamb ! We call upon you, by your own eternal des- 
tiny, not to allow the fountain of divine benevolence, once 
opened on the hill of Calvary, to remain there from age to age 
shut up and sealed — a mere spectacle of solitary, and useless, 
and barren grandeur. But come now, and draw therefrom in 
copious streams ; replenish your reservoirs ; fertilize the soil ; 
and thus produce a rich harvest of fruit, which, when the 
earth and all the works therein are burnt up, and the visible 
heavens are no more, will increase in beauty, and flourish for- 
ever on the shores of a blissful immortality ! 





GuTusa. 



Brahma. 



SUPERSTITIONS 



OF 



THE ASHANTEES, 



ESPECIALLY 



THOSE WHICH LEAD THEM TO SACRIFICE, 



ON CERTAIN OCCASIONS, 



THOUSANDS OF HUMAN YICTIMS. 




PUBLISHED BY CALEB WRIGHT. 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 



The objects of religious worship, in Ashantee, are fetishes. 
They are regarded as spiritual beings, though said to be of difler- 
ent sexes and to require food. They are supposed to reside in 
certain mountains, rivers, trees, brute animals, reptiles, and insects, 
and by ceremonies performed by the priests may be made to take 
up their residence iu images of various kinds, or in bits of wood, 
glass, paper, &c. It is supposed that they not unfrequently ren- 
der themselves visible to mortals. The great fetish of the rock, 
on which Cape Coast Castle stands, is said to come forth in the 
night in human form, but of superhuman size, and to proceed 
through the town, dressed in white, to chase away evil spirits. 
The Ashantees, and also the inhabitants of the adjacent countries, 
believe in the existence of the devil, and, in August, annually 
drive him out of their towns. At Cape Coast Town, preparation 
is made for the ceremony in the course of the day. As the hour 
of eight o'clock in the evening draws nigh, the people are seen 
collecting in groups in the streets, armed with sticks, muskets, 
and other weapons ; at the instant the eight o'clock gun is fired 
from the castle, a tremendous shouting, accompanied with the 
firing of muskets, breaks forth from all parts of the town ; and 
the people rush into their houses, and beat about with their 
sticks in every corner, shouting and hallooing with all their 
strength. When it is imagined that the devil is excluded from all 
the houses, a simultaneous rush is made out of the town, and the 
people in a body pursue the invisible enemy, with lighted flam- 
beaux, shouts, and the firing of muskets, until it is concluded 
that he is completely routed and put to flight. After this achieve- 
ment, they return ; and, in some of the towns, the women pro- 
ceed to wash and purify their wooden and earthen vessels, to 
prevent the devil from returning to their houses. 

The priests and priestesses of the national superstition — the 



6 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTiES. 

fetish-men and fetish-women — constitute a numerous order. 
One class are attached to the public fetish-houses or temples. 
At the temple of the principal fetish of the Ahanta country, 
upwards of fifty superior priests are said to reside. 

Another class of fetish-men itinerate through the country, re- 
maining six or twelve months at a place, according as their 
services may be in demand by the inhabitants. 

The revenue of the fetish-men is derived from the liberality of 
the people. A moiety of the offerings which are presented to 
the fetish belongs to the priests ; and this is very considerable in 
amount. The king of Ashantee's offering is said to be generally 
ten ounces of gold, and that of his subjects in proportion to their 
respective ranks. 

The influence of the fetish-men rests upon the universally- 
received principle, that evils can only be removed, and desired 
benefits conferred, by the fetishes ; and that their friendly inter- 
position must be sought through the medium of their servants or 
ministers. This doctrine, it will be perceived, puts the people 
entirely into the power of the priesthood, and wholly abandons 
them as victims to its rapacity. 

To keep up the delusion, and maintain their influence, the 
fetish-men have recourse to a variety of means. They exert 
themselves to obtain all kinds of information. With this view, 
they employ agents in various parts of the country, who make 
them acquainted with all that is passing within the range of their 
observation. The fetish -men themselves, also, when on their 
travels, industriously collect the news ; and, when one of them 
enters a town to practise his profession, his first business is, to 
shut himself up for a few days, until he ascertains by secret in- 
quiries what subjects are engaging the public attention, who are 
sick, and what is the private history of the principal inhabitants. 
They thus acquire an amount of information which astonishes 
their dupes, and strengthens the popular belief in their supernatu- 
ral powers. 

The success of the fetish-men is further promoted by their act- 
ing in concert. They communicate to each other the information 
they respectively collect, and agree upon the line of operations 
which they shall pursue. A short time since, a person residing 
at a croom, or village, in the neighborhood of Salt Pond, was 
hunting in a very secluded part of the bush, when he came upon 
a company of about twenty fetish-men, who had retired thither 
to lay their plans for promoting the interests of their craft at the 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 7 

public expense. He listened for some time to their conversation, 
unperceived, and might probably have kept their secret, had not 
his superstitious fears been partly dissipated by the influence of 
the gospel. 

The fetish-men apply themselves to the study of medicine ; 
and the knowledge which they acquire of the properties of herbs 
and plants contributes to strengthen their influence with the 
people. 

Application is made to the fetishes for counsel and aid in every 
domestic and public emergency. When persons find occasion to 
consult a private fetish-man, they take a present of rum and gold- 
dust, and proceed to his house. He receives the present, and 
either puts a little of the rum on the head of every image, or 
pours a small quantity upon the ground before the platform, as an 
offering to the whole pantheon ; then taking a brass pan with 
water in it, he sits down with the pan between himself and the 
fetishes ; and the inquirers also seat themselves to await the re- 
sult. Having made these preparatory arrangements, looking 
earnestly into the water, he begins to snap his fingers, and, ad- 
dressing the fetish, extols his power, telling him that people have 
arrived to consult him, and requesting him to come and give the 
desired answer. After a time he is wrought up, like Virgil's 
Sibyl, into a state of fury ; he shakes violently, and foams at the 
mouth. This is to intimate that the fetish has come upon him, 
and that he himself is no longer the speaker, but the fetish, who 
uses his mouth and speaks by him. He now growls like a tiger, 
and asks the people if they have brought rum, requiring them, 
at the same time, to present it to him. He drinks, and then in- 
quires why they have come, and for what purpose they have 
sent for him. If a relative is ill, they reply that such a member of 
' their family is sick ; that they have tried all the means they could 
devise to restore him, but without success ; and that, knowing he 
is a great fetish, they have come to ask his aid, and beg him to 
teach them what they should do. He then speaks kindly to 
them, expresses a hope that he shall be able to help them, and 
says, " I go up to see." It is imagined that the fetish then quits 
the priest ; and, after a silence of a few minutes, he is supposed to 
return, and give his response to the inquiry. 

But what is this " going up to see " ? The people believe that 
the fetish has four eyes, and conclude that therefore he can see 
better than mortals, who have only two ; and some understand 
that the fetish goes up to the sky to look around for the cause of 



8 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

the disease, and for the cure. But the fetish-men themselves, 
when arguing with William De Graft in defence of their system, 
have insisted that the fetish goes up to Yankumpon, the Supreme 
Being ; and they have urged this as a reason for refusing to em- 
brace Christianity. Their argument has been, '' As the fetishes 
derive all their power and wisdom from God, why forsake them ? " 
Latterly, however, as they perceive that the people, under the 
teaching of the missionaries, are disposed to reject this mode of 
reasoning, and go to God at once, the priests do not appear to 
admit so freely the dependence of their deities upon a higher 
power. 

When a principal chief is ill, or when any public calamity has 
taken place, the inhabitants of the town repair to the public temple, 
or fetish-house, to propitiate the fetish, who is supposed to be angry 
because his offerings have not been duly presented ; and who has 
therefore either himself appointed the afflictive visitation, or has 
allowed some evil spirit to inflict it upon them. The illness of 
the chief, however, is shrewdly traced up by the priests to his 
neglect of the prescribed customs for a departed relative, or some 
other similar offence. 

On these occasions, the drums belonging to the temple are 
brought forth. These are made of large calabashes, one end 
being cut off, and covered with goat-skin. The persons who 
play them sit upon the ground under the shade of the grove, and 
beat them with their hands. All things being ready, the priest 
selects and commences a fetish-song, which the people sing, 
while they beat the drums, and the attendant fetish-men dance 
with all their might. While thus engaged, the priests are often 
excited into a state of frenzy, which is regarded as evidence that 
the fetish has entered into them ; and at the end of the song the 
fetish is supposed to speak in the priest, and give intimations of 
his will to the people. Previous to his beginning to speak, the 
priest lays his hand upon the drums, and silence ensues. Having 
ended his communication, he commences another song, and the 
former scene is renewed. After a length of time, perhaps when 
fatigued, the priest dances very slowly, and delivers his oracles to 
the people as he passes softly by them. On some of these occa- 
sions he will rush out of the circle, and run into the house of a 
principal person, to tell him what to do in order to avert some 
evil which he foresees is coming upon the family ; and for such 
intimations he does not fail to receive the usual present. 

Some of the fetish-houses are built in a conical form, with long 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 9 

Sticks or poles placed in the ground, tied together at the top, and 
thatched. When a fetish dance takes place before one of these, 
a priest places himself at the entrance, to prevent the people from 
looking in. They are told that, when the fetish comes down to 
his temple, they will see it move. And verily they do. As the 
drumming, singing, and dancing proceed, the temple begins to rock 
backward and forward, which the people are led to believe is effected 
by the fetish, who has descended, and is dancing upon the temple. 
This deception is managed by a fetish-man, who, before the peo- 
ple come together, places himself on a cross-seat in the building, 
near the top, where he is able to shake with ease the whole 
fabric. The stationing of another fetish-man before the door is 
to prevent the people from discovering the true cause of the 
phenomenon which they witness. 

Sometimes the town-fetish does not wait to be consulted, but 
summons the inhabitants to his temple. On such occasions, the 
priests profess that the fetish has come upon them. They run 
about the town like frantic persons, eating raw eggs, using the 
most extravagant gestures, and telling th6 people that the fetish 
has a communication to make to them. Then the inhabitants 
take the accustomed presents, and hasten to the fetish-house ; and 
the usual scene of drumming, singing, and dancing is enacted. 

In cases of great difficulty, the oracle at Abrah is the last resort 
of the Fantees. This has always been held in the highest esti- 
mation. Previous to the Ashantee (As-hanti) war, there was in 
the neighbc rhood a deep and almost impervious dell, inhabited by 
a number of aged fetish-men, whom the people believed to be im- 
mortal, and to have lived there beyond all memory, in intimate 
converse with the fetish, and with the departed spirits of the 
aged and the wise. Adoko, the chief of the BralToes. frequently 
consulted them, either in his own person, or through his head 
fetish-man ; and the Fantees afterwards attributed the success of 
the Ashantees, and their own defeats and misfortunes, to their 
disregard of the injunctions of the oracle. Abrah is now in ruins ; 
but the fetish maintains his reputation ; partly by the influence of 
the fetish-men in the country, who advise the people to go thither 
in cases of great emergency, and partly by means of the informa- 
tion conveyed to Abrah by the agents of the oracle. Frequently, 
when inquirers go from a distance, they are surprised to find that 
the fetish-men are already acquainted with many of their own 
private affairs ; and it often happens that, on the strength of the 
secret information which they have obtained, the priests send 



lO SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

such messages to persons living in remote places as tend to cherish 
and confirm the popular impression, that they possess supernat- 
ural means of obtaining knowledge. The people throughout the 
country would be afraid, were they disposed, to speak disrespect- 
fully of the Abrah fetish ; for they believe that he would hear 
them, catch them up into the sky, and make them drawers of 
water, or would inflict upon them some other severe pun- 
ishment. 

This celebrated oracle is always consulted at night. During 
the day no person is allowed to enter the sacred thicket from 
which the response is given. Any of the natives rambling with- 
in the precincts of the enclosure would be severely fined ; and, if 
a European were seen approaching, the fetish-men would endeav- 
or to dissuade him from entering it. When the inquirers arrive, 
they find a large fire made upon the ground; and the presents 
which they have brought they place in the hands of the priests 
in attendance. But sometimes they are told that they shall have 
the honor of giving them to the fetish himself. They are then 
directed to elevate their presents above their heads, and to fix 
their eyes steadfastly upon the ground ; for, should they look up, 
the fetish, it is said, would inflict blindness upon them for their 
Sacrilegious gaze. Who or what it is, in the overhanging 
branches of the trees, that receives the presents, will be readily 
conjectured. The visitants are then instructed to sit down, and 
look into the fire, without turning their heads aside, or speaking 
to each other ; and two or three priests go round the company, 
and receive their applications. After a time the oracle gives a 
response, in a small, shrill voice, intended to convey the idea that 
it proceeds from an unearthly source. 

All possible precautions are used to inspire the people with awe 
and fear, to deter them from visiting this oracle from motives of 
mere curiosity. It is inculcated that, should an unbeliever in 
the fetish enter the enclosure, he would be immediately discov- 
ered, and summarily punished. The fate of one irreverent visitant 
is dwelt upon with great solemnity. It is stated, that when he 
arrived, and sat down by the fire, a chain came down from the 
thicket, and dragged him up to the skies, where he is now em- 
ployed in drawing up water from the sea, which the fetishes send 
back to the earth, in answer to the applications made to them for 
rain. 

It has already been remarked that fetish-men and women ac- 
quire sufficient knowledge of the medicinal properties of herbs and 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 11 

plants to enable them to cure many diseases. This knowledge is 
artfully employed to foster the public superstition. In adminis- 
tering the medicine, they invariably tell the patient that its healing 
properties were not discovered by themselves, and that they merely 
prepare it according to the prescription of the fetish. During the 
healing process many fetish rites are observed, to render the 
medicine more efficacious, and to counteract the influence of evil 
spirits. If the malady of the patient does not appear to yield to 
such applications, the fetish is again consulted ; and, in some 
cases, as a further expedient, the priest takes a fowl or a cat, and 
ties it to a stick, and squeezes it to death. The stick is then 
placed in the path leading to the house, for the purpose of pre- 
venting evil spirits from approaching it. When the patient is 
known to be a rich man, a present of gold-dust is required, and 
sheep are directed to be offered. Mr. Bowdich states that, during 
the illness of his native guide at Coomassie, (Kumasi,) several 
sheep were sacrificed, and that he was fetished until the last mo- 
ment, and died amidst the howls of a number of old fetish- 
women, who continued to besmear with eggs, and other ingredi- 
ents, the walls, door-posts, and every thing about him, until he 
had ceased to breathe. The sickness of persons of the highest 
order is frequently attended with more serious consequences than 
the slaughter of sheep and fowls. During the illness of Osai 
Tutu Q,uamina, it is stated that young virgins were regularly 
sacrificed to the fetish on certain days in the week, for the re- 
covery of his health. 

For the purpose of fortifying the applicant against any appre- 
hended evil, some kind of fetish preparation is made, which he is 
directed to wear about his person ; and, should it fail to accom- 
plish the desired object, the blame is invariably thrown upon the 
wearer. It is alleged that he has neglected some necessary con- 
dition, or in some way or other offended the fetish ; and the 
fetish-man escapes without censure. However greatly the pre- 
dictions of the priests may be falsified by the event, or whatever 
may be the failure of the measures to which they resort, their 
own credit is maintained with the people. The case of the fetish- 
man at Gaboon will serve for the purpose of illustration. This 
individual, who declared himself to be invulnerable, was solicited 
by a credulous young man to endue him with the same miracu- 
lous quality. The request, enforced by a handsome present, 
was favorably entertained by the fetish-man ; and the applicant 
having been duly fortified by the performance of the requisite 



12 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

superstitious rites, confidently exposed himself to the fire of a 
musket. His arm was shattered by the ball ; but the fetish-man 
adroitly threw all the blame of the miscarriage upon the wounded 
dupe. He stated, that at the moment when the gun was dis- 
charged, it was revealed to him by the fetish that the young man 
had, on a former occasion, violated one of the fetish regulations. 
The sufferer was not prepared to maintain that he was faultless ; 
and the people continued to regard the fetish-man with undimin- 
ished veneration. 

The measures prescribed to insure success in war afford a 
striking proof of the direful influence exerted by the national 
superstitions. When the king of Ashantee was about to engage 
in the Gaman war, he was employed in religious preparations 
during a period of several weeks. Not only in the capital, but at 
several other places, he presented fetish offerings in furtherance of 
the undertaking. According to the account of those transactions 
which Dupuis received from a native, it appears that the mon- 
arch, in the first instance, collected together his priests, and pro- 
ceeded to consult the gods by a succession of liuman sacrifices. 
After fifty persons — thirty-two males and eighteen females — 
had perished, the royal council decided that the answers returned 
by the priests were unsatisfactory. The king was then directed 
to make a custom at the sepulchres of his ancestors ; and when 
the blood of many hundreds of human victims had been shed, 
the priests announced that the wrath of the adverse deities was 
appeased, and that they were at length disposed to favor the 
arms of the king. A certain composition was then prepared by 
the priests, which they delivered to the king, with a strict injunc- 
tion to burn it daily in a consecrated fire-pot within the palace. 
On no account was the fire to become extinct in consequence of 
neglect ; for, so long as the sacred flame should continue to de- 
stroy the composition, the king, it was alleged, would not fail to 
triumph over his enemies. 

Encouraged by the assurances which he received, the king pre- 
pared to join his army, and committed to his eldest sister, at that 
time the governess of the empire, or queen of the females, the 
task of watching over the sacred mystery ; informing her that both 
his crown and his life depended upon her vigilance. To assist 
her, he selected three of his favorite wives, who were to attend 
by turns, and prevent the fire from being extinguished. To this 
trust, however, the sister proved unfaithful. After the king had 
been some time absent, she formed a connection with a chief of 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 13 

Bouromy, whose ambition led him to aspire to the throne of 
Ashantee. Seventeen of the king's wives, and their famihes, are 
said to have joined in the conspiracy ; when the mysterious flame 
was extinguished, the fire-pot was broken to pieces, and the 
rebellious chief openly began to arm his followers in maintenance 
of his claims. 

With this state of things, the king, it was believed, became ac- 
quainted by supernatural means. Surprised at the severe checks 
which he received in the early part of the war, he caused an in- 
cantation to be performed over a certain talisman, for the purpose 
of ascertaining why the results of the campaign proved so contrary 
to those which he had been encouraged to expect ; when he is 
said to have obtained an insight into what was going on in his 
own capital. The fetish-men who were with him in the camp 
had doubtless received private information from Coomassie, which 
they communicated to the king as though it had been revealed by 
the oracle. The sequel may be briefly stated. The king imme- 
diately despatched Ossu Kujoh, with a body of troops, who 
speedily and eff"ectually crushed the rebellion. When the king 
himself returned victorious at the end of the war, he summoned 
a council to deliberate upon the punishment to be inflicted upon 
the off'enders ; and it was finally decreed that the off'ending wives 
should suff'er death by decapitation ; but, to avoid the profanation 
of spilling royal blood, the sister of the king was ordered to 
be strangled, (her younger sister being elevated to her ofiice of 
governess of the females,) and her paramour, and all his party, 
were doomed to undergo the most cruel deaths, at the grave 
of the king's mother. By the execution of these sentences, which 
were promptly carried into effect, it is said, seven hundred indi- 
viduals perished. 

In their preparations for war, the Ashantees have recourse to 
the Moors who visit or reside at the capital, as well as to their 
own fetish-men. Enormous prices are sometimes paid for the 
fetishes, or charms, manufactured by those followers of the proph- 
et. The king, it is stated, gave for the fetish or war-coat of 
Apoko the value of thirty-seven slaves ; and he paid according 
to the same scale for the war-dresses of several other chiefs^ 
varied only with respect to the rank which they respectively sus- 
tained. For a small fetish, consisting of six lines of wriiing, 
enclosed in red cloth only, which the king presented to Mr. Bow- 
dich's linguist, he gave six ackies of gold. Sometimes the fetish 
is cased in gold instead of cloth. A single sheet of writing-paper 



l4 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

is sufficient for a great number of charms, as a very small slip 
only will contain a mystical sentence. 

To these cabalistic preparations the most extraordinary virtues 
are ascribed. The Ashantees firmly believe that they greatly 
contribute to make them invulnerable in war ; that they paralyze 
the hand and shiver the weapons of the enemy, and divert the 
course of the balls. Several of the Ashantee captains seriously 
offered to allow Mr. Bowdich to fire at them ; and such is the 
confidence which the warriors of that nation generally repose in 
these mystical defences, that they rush fearlessly into the midst of 
the greatest dangers. In the praises of one of the great captains, 
proclaimed on a public occasion by the bards, this was the climax 
of the song: "He is invulnerable; his fetish no man can look 
upon and live," 

In the course of a war, the Ashantees use additional means to 
fortify themselves against evil, and to obtain fresh inspirations of 
vigor and courage. Several of the hearts of the slain enemy are 
taken out by the fetish-men who attend the army ; and, having 
been cut to pieces, are mixed with blood and various consecrated 
herbs, while the accustomed ceremonies and incantations are per- 
formed. All who have never before killed an enemy eat of the 
preparation ; it being believed that, if they did not, their energy 
would be secretly wasted by the haunting spirits of their deceased 
foes. The smaller joints, bones, and teeth of the most distin- 
guished among the slain, are worn by the victors about their 
persons. Such was the end of the unfortunate Sir Charles M'Car- 
thy. His heart was eaten, and his bones were worn as fetishes, 
or charms, by his savage conquerors. 

The national divinities are supposed to be as willing to assist 
an individual in injuring his neighbors as in averting evils from 
himself and his family. If a revengeful or malicious design is 
formed, recourse is had to the fetish, for the purpose of carrying it 
into effect. During Mr. Hutchinson's stay at Coomassie, a person 
was executed for an attempt upon the life of his brother, who was 
a caboceer, or nobleman. The criminal was presumptive heir to 
the property, and his object was to obtain possession of it by the 
removal of his brother. To effect this, however, he did not use 
any personal violence, but only employed the fetish incantations 
which are resorted to for such purposes. 

The great religious customs, which are to be classed among 
the darkest features of the national superstitions, yet remain for 
consideration. The immolation of prisoners taken in war is one 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 15 

of those revolting practices ; for it is presented to our notice, not 
as the effect of the ungovernable passions of the conquerors, 
breaking loose from the restraints and obligations of religion, but 
as an expression of pious zeal and devotion. It results from the 
principle recognized by the king of Ashantee in these words : 
" The fetish makes war for strong men, because they can then 
pay plenty of gold, and proper sacrifice." To obtain a supply of 
victims for their altars, is thus a principal end for which the 
national deities are supposed to promote war ; and the sacrifice of 
their prisoners, consequently, becomes a religious obligation on the 
part of the people. Dreadful are the scenes of barbarity which 
are exhibited after a victorious campaign. After the Gaman war, 
full two thousand prisoners were destroyed, by the most refined 
tortures, over the royal death-stool in Coomassie, in honor of the 
fetish, and of the shades of departed kings and heroes; and at 
the commencement of the war which brought the Ashantees into 
hostile collision with the British, when the Asins were overthrown 
near the Prah, the horrid work of sacrificing the prisoners went 
on at the little temple on the banks of the river, by night as well 
as by day, until thousands had perished. In the national songs 
which celebrated the latter victory, the principle which requires 
the sacrifice of prisoners was distinctly recognized ; and the bards 
exultingly sang that " a river of perjured blood flowed from Miasa 
to the Prah, and propitiated the lorath of the river -god. ^^ 

In Fantee, (Fanti,) the preparations for a funeral commence by 
washing the corpse, arraying him in his best garments, and adorn- 
ing him with his trinkets and beads. He is then laid on a sofa, 
in a room the walls of which are covered, either wholly or in 
part, with red cloth. A silk umbrella is fastened to the wall 
over the head of the corpse, and a table is placed near it, covered 
with viands and wine for the use of the departed spirit. The 
family then commence a loud wailing, which attracts the neigh- 
bors to the house. 

Every party of relatives or friends, coming from a distance to 
join in the custom, bring a suitable present, and are accompanied 
with drums and muskets. On their arrival, they give their pres- 
ents to the individual having the charge or direction of the 
funeral, who is usually one of the principal persons of the family 
of the deceased. They then fire their muskets, and begin to beat 
their drums. The director of the funeral custom takes a regular 
account of the presents received, that a similar compliment may 



16 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

be returned when the head of the family of the donors may be 
removed by death. 

After a few days, the dead person is buried in his own house, 
or, if he be a young man, in the house of his father ; and on the 
principle that individuals assume in another world the state 
which they maintained in this, the head of a family is interred in 
his best clothes and ornaments ; gold-dust is also put into his 
grave ; and sheep and cattle, at least, are slain on the occasion. 
Drumming, firing, dancing, wailings, shoutings, and other extrav- 
agant proceedings, take place when the soil is thrown upon the 
corpse ; and food and drink are placed upon the grave. 

If the deceased was rich, the custom is continued, perhaps for a 
month, until the family are nearly reduced to want ; as they are 
obliged to support all the parties who attend the funeral from a 
distance, so long as they remain. A funeral is usually absolute 
ruin to a poor family. Whether they can afford it or not, the 
custom must be observed ; and the survivors are obliged to find 
money to meet the expenses. The practice of persons borrowing 
money of others, and engaging to remunerate the lender by their 
future services, (a practice which cannot be regarded without sus- 
picion, as liable to great abuse,) is very much promoted by 
funeral customs. Many poor persons, on the death of the head of 
their family, have been obliged to become " pawns " to others, to 
obtain sufficient money to meet the unavoidable expense. 

The funeral custom is renewed at the end of twelve months, 
when sheep and cattle are killed in honor of the deceased. Every 
year, after this, a little rum and food is placed upon the grave by 
the relatives ; and even if the house has gone to decay, or has 
been pulled down, they will not fail to repair to the spot with the 
accustomed annual oflfering. 

The natives believe that their deceased relatives eat and drink, 
live in the same state, and engage in the same pursuits as when they 
were in this world. This belief exerts a powerful influence upon 
the mind, and leads to the most tragic results. If their relatives 
are to resume in another world the state they maintained in this, 
then it is deemed necessary to send after them their wives and 
attendants ; and thus the death of an individual becomes the 
signal for the murder of his household. 

Until recently, human sacrifices were publicly ofljered at funeral 
customs in the immediate neighborhood of the coast. Bosman 
mentions one at which he witnessed the sacrifice of eleven per- 
sons, among whom was an individual who, having endured 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 17 

exquisite torture, was delivered up to a child of six years of age, 
by whom his head was, after much difficulty, finally sawed from 
his body. Meredith states, that, in the year 1800, when a king 
of Apollonia died, one or two human beings were sacrificed every 
Saturday, until the great custom took place, which did not happen 
until six months after his decease ; when upwards of fifty persons 
were sacrificed, and two of his youngest wives were put alive with 
his corpse into the grave, wherein was deposited a considerable 
qnantity of gold, and several rich cloths. The lid of the coffin 
was covered with human blood, on which gold-dust was 
sprinkled. And Dupuis says that he has known many victims 
sacrificed, in the last few years, within gun-shot of the castles. 
He mentions the case of two men and two women, who were 
butchered under the very walls of the fort at Accra ; and adds,, 
that at Tantum, Apollonia, Dix Cove, Succondee, and Chamah,. 
the same class of murders was perpetrated with impunity. In a 
recent letter, the Rev. Mr. Brooking mentions that a person had. 
just perished under the sacrificial knife at Dutch Accra. Since 
the Ashantee invasions, the power of the Fantees has been so 
greatly broken, and their numbers are so much reduced, that the 
British government, to which they are obliged to look for pro- 
tection, has been enabled to put down these inhuman practices 
within the sphere of its immediate influence. 

In the independent states in the interior, the funeral customs of 
the rich and great exhibit spectacles of the most horrifying bar- 
barity. In some cases many of the wives, and in others a great 
number of slaves, are, on these occasions, sent after the deceased, 
to enable him to maintain his proper rank in another world. When 
a king of Dahomy dies, a dreadful scene takes place in the palace. 
The wives of the deceased monarch begin to break and destroy 
his ornaments, and every thing valuable belonging to themselves, 
and then to kill each other. When Adahunzun died, two hun- 
dred and eighty of his wives thus perished, before his successor 
could arrive at the palacef and put a stop to the carnage ; and, at 
the funeral of the deceased king, all these victims were buried in 
the same grave, with six of the remaining living wives. 

In Ashantee, when a person of distinction dies, the slaves im- 
mediately rush out of the house, to hide themselves in the bush ; 
as a slave or two are instantly sacrificed, to attend upon the spirit 
of the deceased until the custom shall take place. It has been 
stated that the king of Ashantee, in his last battle with the British, 
at Dodowah, whenever it was announced to him that any of his 



18 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

captains had been killed, immediately caused slaves to be immo- 
lated to accompany them into the other world. 

When Mr. Bowdich was at Coomassie, he had the opportunity 
of witnessing a funeral custom for the mother of one of the prin- 
cipal caboceers, (noblemen or chiefs ;) and he states that, as soon 
as she had breathed her last, the king, her son, and another of the 
nobles, each sacrificed a young girl, that the deceased might not 
be altogether without attendants, until the custom should take 
place. The relatives and adherents of the family then presented 
contributions of gold, powder, rum, and cloth, to be expended at 
the funeral ; but the king, as the heir of all his subjects, sent a 
larger present than any other, except the nearest relative, who 
succeeded to the stool and the slaves. He also sent a sum of 
gold, and some valuable cloths, to be buried with the deceased. 

On the day of the funeral, an extraordinary scene presented it- 
self. Walking out about noon, Mr. Bowdich and his friends saw 
the vultures hovering over two headless trunks, scarcely cold ; 
and were passed by several troops of women, from fifty to a 
hundred each, who danced along in a movement resembling 
skaiting, lauding and bewailing the deceased in the most dismal 
strains. Other women carried on their heads rich cloths and 
silks, and other valuables w;hich had belonged to her. All these 
women were profusely daubed with red earth, in barbarous imita- 
tion of those who had succeeded in besmearing themselves with 
the blood of the victims. The rush of the crowd was most 
tumultuous ; and horns, drums, and muskets, yells, groans, and 
screechings, were heard in every direction. Now and then a 
victim was hurried along at full speed, by persons, the savage 
delight of whose countenances gave them a fiendlike appearance ; 
and the chiefs and captains arrived in rapid succession, their ap- 
proach being announced by the peculiar flourishes of their horns, 
and the firing of muskets. Soon the king's arrival in the market- 
place was made known ; and the crowd rolled impetuously 
towards it ; but the sabres of the soldiers, which were freely 
used, hewed a way for the procession. The son of the deceased 
led the van, dancing from side to side like a bacchanal, and ap- 
pearing as though he was intoxicated with the adulatory praises 
which were bellowed forth by .his attendants. He looked upon 
the victims, who had large knives passed through their cheeks, 
with a savage joy, bordering on frenzy ; while they regarded him 
with indiflerence or apathy. The other chiefs and captains, 
adorned in all the splendor of their fetish dresses, followed in 
the train. 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEE9. 19 

On arriving at the market-place, Mr. Bowdich saw the king 
seated with his usual attendants and state -display. Thirteen 
victims, surrounded by their executioners, in black shaggy caps 
and vests, were pressed together by the crowd at his left hand. 
The troops of women already described, paraded on the outside 
of the circle, vociferated the dirge ; and the utmost powers of the 
horns and drums were called forth. A discharge of musketry 
then took place near the king, which spread round the circle, and 
was continued without intermission for an hour. The soldiers 
kept their stations; but the chiefs, after firing their muskets, 
bounded once round the area with the gesture and extravagant 
behavior of maniacs, followed by their sycophants, who waved 
flags over their heads and roared forth their "strong names." 
The head fetish-woman of the family was at the same time ob- 
served rushing through the ranks as the muskets were fired, and 
screaming as though in the greatest agonies. The firing having 
somewhat subsided, rum and palm-wine were copiously drunk ; 
and the principal females of the family, many of whom were 
described as being very handsome, came forward to dance. 

Presents of sheep and rum having been exchanged between the 
king and the son of the deceased, the drums announced the sacri- 
fice of the victims, who were visited successively by all the 
chiefs. The executioners struggled with each other for the 
bloody office, and the victims looked on with apparent indiffer- 
ence. At length, an executioner, snatching a sword, lopped off 
the right hand of one of the victims, who was then thrown down, 
and his head was sawed, rather than cut, from the body. The 
remaining twelve were, in like manner, mangled and butchered 
upon the spot ; and others, principally females, were provided, to 
be sacrificed in the bush where the body was interred. Slaves, 
however, are not the only victims on such occasions ; for it is 
usual to " wet the grave " with the blood of at least one respecta- 
ble freeman. The heads of all the slaves who have perished 
having been placed in the grave, several of the retainers of the 
family are called in a hurry to assist in lowering the coffin; 
when, just as it touches the heads which pave the bottom of the 
grave, one of the freemen is stunned by a violent blow, a deep 
gash is cut in the back part of his neck, he is rolled in upon the 
body, and the grave is instantly filled. 

After this, the firing, drinking, singing, and dancing were kept 
up during several days ; and it was understood that, had not the 
approaching war with Gaman enforced the necessity of economiz- 



20 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

ing powder, there would have been eight great customs for the 
deceased, instead of this one ; at the last of which the king him- 
self would have fired. On the last day of the custom, all the 
females connected with the family paraded round the town, sing- 
ing a grateful acknov/ledgment of the services of those who had 
assisted at the custom. 

The funeral customs for kings and members of the royal family 
are conducted on a scale corresponding with the rank of the 
deceased. The okras, — who are slaves peculiarly devoted to the 
king, and distinguished by a large circle of gold suspended from 
the neck, — amounting in number to more than a hundred, and 
also many women, are sacrificed on the tomb of the king. When 
Osai diiamina died, the funeral custom was repeated every week 
for three months, two hundred slaves being sacrificed, and 
twenty-five barrels of powder being fired on each occasion ; but 
when the king's brother died, during the invasion of Fantee, the 
king devoted three thousand victims, two thousand of whom were 
Fantee prisoners, and nearly one thousand more were furnished 
by various towns ; making, in the whole, about four thousand 
human beings who perished at the grave of this royal persoriage. 
When the king dies, Ashantee is, in fact, one vast Aceldama ; 
for all the customs which have been made for deceased subjects 
during his reign, must be repeated by their families, simultane- 
ously with the custom which is celebiated for the departed 
monarch. During the first two or three days after the death of 
the king, scarcely any one is safe ; for the relatives of the king, 
rushing forth with their muskets, carry havoc and death around ; and 
few persons, even of the highest rank, dare to leave their homes. 
The funeral customs of the kings of Ashantee are frequently 
repeated ; and Bantama, the royal sepulchre, is, from time to 
time, made to reek with the blood of newly-slain victims. 

The annual yam custom furnishes another exhibition of the 
true character of the national superstitions. It is celebrated when 
the yam is ready for use ; and is intended as a public acknowl- 
edgment, on the part of the people, of the kindness of the 
fetishes in preserving them through another year. 

In Fantee, all the inhabitants of the towns assemble under the 
shade of the grove adjoining the fetish house or temple, when a 
sheep or some fowls are killed, part of the flesh of which is 
mixed with boiled yams and palm-oil, and a portion of this mixture 
being placed upon the heads of the images, the remainder is 
thrown about before the temple, as a heave-offering to the deities 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 21 

When the heave-offering has heen presented, the fetish-men re- 
ceive from the people the offerings of rum which Ihey have 
brought ; and, after placing a httle upon the heads of the images? 
and pouring out a small quantity upon the ground before the 
temple, they invite all the fetishes to come and partake of it, 
saying, "When people eat, they need to drink also." The re- 
mainder of the sheep and fowls are made into a soup, of which 
no persons but the priests and priestesses are allowed to eat ; but 
the people partake of the residue of the rum. When the priests 
have finished their repast, the people begin to beat the drums, 
and sing fetish songs, to which the priests dance ; and the festivi- 
ty is often prolonged throughout the night. 

The celebration of the yam custom at Winnebah is attended 
with one peculiarity. The principal fetish at that place, it is 
believed, will not be satisfied with sheep, but he must have a 
deer brought alive to his temple, and there sacrificed. Accord- 
ingly, on the day the custom is to be celebrated, almost the 
whole of the inhabitants, except the aged and infirm, go out into 
the adjoining country, which, studded with clumps of trees and 
bushes, has a park-like appearance ; and, while the women and 
children look on, the men strike the thicket with sticks, beat 
drums, and halloo with alt their might. While thus engaged, 
sometimes a leopard or panther starts forth ; but it is usually so 
frightened with the noise and confusion, that it scampers off in 
one direction as fast as the people run from it in another. When 
a deer rushes out, the chase begins, and the people attempt to run 
it down. At length, it is tumbled upon the ground by the sticks 
which are thrown at its legs, when the people seize it, and exult- 
ingly carry it to the town, with shouting and drumming. On 
entering, they are met by the aged persons with staves ; and, 
having gone in procession round the town, they proceed to the 
fetish house, where the animal is sacrificed, and partly offered to 
the fetish, and partly eaten by the priests. The catching of the 
deer is described as an animated scene ; and European gentlemen 
not unfrequently go from Annamaboe to witness it. In 1839, the 
people succeeded in catching two deer, which were both offered 
to the fetish. 

The yam custom is continued during several days ; and is 
followed or closed by what the English have termed the Black- 
Christmas, when the people put on their best clothes, and visit 
each other. On entering the house, they shake hands with all 
the inmates, congratulating them, and wishing they may live to 



22 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES 

see another year. On this occasion, the chiefs bring out their 
large umbrellas, and all make the best display which their cir- 
cumstances will afford. In about three weeks after this, the 
ceremony of turning the devil out of the towns takes place, and 
the people conclude that they have then made a promising com- 
mencement of the year. 

At the time of the yam custom in Ashantee, there is a great 
national assembly in the capital. All the caboceers, and the 
tributary sovereigns, or their representatives, are required to be 
present, except those who have been sent to a distance on urgent 
public business ; and it is at this annual festival that suspected 
chiefs are usually placed upon their trial. During the whole of 
the festival, the greatest licentiousness and immorality prevail, 
and both sexes abandon themselves to their passions without 
restraint. 

At one of these festivals witnessed by Mr. Bowdich, every 
caboceer, as he arrived, sacrificed a slave at the city gate ; and, 
in the procession of the first day, all the heads of the kings and 
caboceers who had been conquered, from the reign of Osai Tutu 
down to that time, with those who had been executed for rebel- 
lion, were carried by two parties of executioners, each consisting 
of upwards of a hundred individuals. • In the skulls were inserted 
sprigs of thyme, to prevent the spirits of the deceased from trou- 
bling the king ; and, as the bearers of those horrid trophies passed 
along in an impassioned dance, they clashed their knives upon the 
skulls either with the most frightful gestures, or with an expres- 
sion of indescribable irony and ridicule. The festivity was kept 
up during the greater part of the night ; and on the following 
morning, which happened to be the Christian Sabbath, the king 
ordered a large quantity of rum to be poured into brass pans, for 
the use of the people, in various parts of the town. A most 
beastly scene resulted ; for, in less than an hour, excepting the 
principal men, not a sober individual was to be seen.* Towards 
the evening, another splendid procession took place. The third 
day was chiefly occupied with state-palavers ; and, on the day 
after, the assembly broke up, and the caboceers took their 
leave. 

In the course of these proceedings, about one hundred persons 
were killed at various places in the capital. Several slaves were 

* The Ashantees procure their rum of Christians in exchange for slaves. 
The rum which made so many of these heathens drunk on the Christian Sabbath 
was doubtless brought to them by a nominal Christian. 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 23 

also sacrificed at the royal sepulchre of Bantama, over the enor- 
mous brass pan which is used there for sacrificial purposes ; and 
the streaming blood of the victims was mingled with various 
vegetable and animal matter, partly fresh and partly putrefied, for 
the purpose of making the most powerful fetish preparation. All 
the chiefs, likewise, killed several slaves, and caused their blood 
to flow into the holes from which the new yams were taken ; and 
those who could not aflbrd to kill slaves, took the head of one 
already sacrificed, and placed it upon the hole. 

In the interior, time is divided into periods of three weeks, and 
the first of the three is regarded as the good week, and is 
called Adai. The Ashantees honor its return by a religious 
festival, termed the Adai custom ; and this is distinguished 
again as great or little, for reasons which have not been 
fully ascertained. The great and the little customs, however, 
appear to alternate with regularity, so that one of each is cele- 
brated every three weeks. At the setting of the sun on the 
evening previous to the custom, the great death-drum, which 
stands at the gate of the palace, is struck with much force ; the 
royal household shout, and their exclamations are echoed by the 
people throughout the capital. Music and firing are continued 
through the night ; and on the next morning, the king proceeds 
to the fetish house, opposite the palace, and offers in sacrifice 
several sheep, whose blood is poured on the golden stool, which 
is regarded as the palladium of the kingdom. There is then a 
numerous assemblage of all ranks in the palace-yard. A great 
display takes place ; and it has been calculated, that the king, on 
every such occasion, makes presents to the superior captains and 
others, amounting in value to the sum of four hundred pounds 
sterling. 

This custom, also, is frequently accompanied by scenes most 
revolting to humanity. Mr. Hutchinson remarks, that the great- 
est sacrifice of human life which took place while he resided at 
Coomassie, occurred on the eve of the little Adai custom. He 
had a friendly caution given him respecting it, from a quarter 
which he did not feel himself at liberty to name. " Christian," 
said his kind monitor, " take care and watch over your family : 
the angel of death has drawn his sword, and will strike on the 
neck of many Ashantees. When the drum is struck on Adai eve, 
it will be the death-signal of many. Shun the king, if you can ; 
but fear not." As the time approached to beat the drum. and Mr. 
Hutchinson sat meditating on the horrors of the ensuing night, he 



24 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES, 

suddenly received a message to attend the king. Tiiis was a 
somewhat startling summons, as obnoxious caboceers are fre- 
quently thus sent for on such occasions, ostensibly to talk a pala- 
ver, but, on entering the palace, they are seized and led to execu- 
tion. Mr. Hutchinson, however, waited upon the king ; and, 
while he remained with him, the officers appointed to attend the 
sacrifices came in with their knives, and other weapons of destruc- 
tion. 

The design of this sacrifice was, to propitiate the fetish, and 
secure its assistance in the approaching war with Buntuku. The 
bones of the king's mother and sisters were, in the first place, 
taken out of their cofiins, and bathed in rum and water ; and. 
after having been wiped with silks, they were rolled in 
gold-dust, and wrapped in strings of rock-gold, aggry-beads, 
and other most costly materials. Those persons against whom 
the king had any cause of complaint were then sent for in snc- 
cession, and immolated as they entered, that " their blood might 
water the graves " of the royal personages, whose bones had been 
exhumed. During the whole of the night, the king's executioners 
traversed the city, and all whom they met were dragged away for 
execution ; but the intended massacre having by some means 
become known, the king was disappointed in securing so few of 
the distinguished individuals who had been marked out as 
victims. Next morning, desolation seemed to reign over the capi- 
tal, and no persons appeared in the market-place but the king and 
his attendants. When the day closed, the human sacrifices were 
again renewed ; and during the night, the bones of the royal 
deceased were removed to the sacred tomb at Bantama, accom- 
panied by a splendid procession. The chiefs and their attendants 
were all habited in their military costume ; the stools, and all the 
ornaments used on great occasions, were borne by the proper ofli- 
cers ; the human victims, in chains, with their hands tied behind 
them, preceded the bones ; while at intervals, the chanting of the 
war-song indicated the eagerness which prevailed to march 
against the enemy. When the procession returned, on the fol- 
lowing day, the king proceeded to the market-place. His horns 
sounded the well-known " wow, wow, wow," interpreted, "■ death, 
death, death ; " and the work of sacrifice was at once resumed. 
The king sat with a goblet of palm-wine in his hand, and, every 
time the executioners cut off" a head, he imitated a dancing motion 
in his chair. The terrors of the day ended when the king re- 
turned to his palace ; and the chiefs, issuing from their places of 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 26 

concealment, paraded the streets, rejoicing that they had, for that 
time, escaped death. 

A similar description is given of the little Adai custom, by 
Dupuis. The city, he remarks, exhibited the most deplorable 
solitude ; and the few human beings who were courageous enough 
to show themselves in the streets fled at the approach of a cap- 
tain, and barricaded their doors, to avoid being shot or dragged 
to sacrifice. The doleful cries of the women vibrated from vari- 
ous parts of the city ; and the death-horns and drums seemed to 
stupefy the obnoxious prisoners and foreign slaves with terror, as 
clearly indicating the dangers to which they were exposed. The 
second day of the custom exhibited a similar train of horrors ; and 
human blood again flowed in torrents, at the dictate of this san- 
guinary superstition. 

It would be an easy task to enlarge this horrifying picture. 
The religious customs of the neighboring country of Dahomy, — 
whose barbarous monarch paves the approaches to his residence, 
and ornaments the battlements of his palace, with the skulls of 
his victims, — and the gigantic fetish-tree at Badagry, — the wide- 
spreading branches of which are laden with human carcasses and 
limbs, — would alone furnish abundant matter for amplification. 
But further research is unnecessary. The reader will now be 
able to form a tolerably correct estimate of the nature and tenden- 
cy of the popular superstition. The range of its influence is al- 
most without limit. It holds its votaries in a state of perpetual 
thraldom. They cannot eat or drink without recognizing its au- 
thority. They cannot cultivate their ground, undertake a jour- 
ney, enter into any negotiation, or engage in any business, but in 
obedience to its requirements. The practice of medicine, and the 
administration of justice, being under its control, it regulates the 
proceedings in all questions affecting property, and life and health. 

The baneful effect which such a system must have upon public 
morals especially demands attention. What, indeed, must be the 
morals of a people where unchastity in unmarried women is no 
disgrace ; where prostitution is even regarded as a virtue ; where 
the priesthood is employed in promoting and concealing the in- 
trigues of faithless wives ; and where religion sanctions instead 
Off discountenancing crime, and even lends the aid of its influence 
to him who cherishes injurious intentions against the property 
and life of another ! 

A careful examination of the national religion unfolds the true 
source of the barbarous practices which so extensively prevail. 



»tj SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

Were nothing known of the superstitions of the people, it might 
remain a matter of doubt whether, in the wholesale butchery of 
their enemies, they were not merely indulging their own savage 
instincts, like the wild beasts of the forest. In the absence of in- 
formation on that subject, the interpretation of the following pas- 
sages from Dupuis would be attended with difficulty. 

" The wars of the king," says the writer, " were shortly after in- 
troduced as a subject of general discussion. That of Gaman was 
the favorite subject : and the king occasionally took up the thread 
of the narrative, or elucidated such events as were perhaps not 
generally known. As he caused the linguists to interpret to me 
the particular feats of himself, the king of Banna, and Apoko, his 
eyes sparkled with fiery animation ; and, at one period, he threw 
himself into a sort of theatrical attitude, which appeared to be un- 
premeditated and unaffected. He then seemed to be wrapped up 
within himself in delightful cogitations; and, at this crisis, some 
of the auditors, like the bards of olden time, rose to the hum of 
the war-song, and recited their parts in a pleasing, mellifluous 
strain. The king enjoyed the scene in ecstasy, and frequently 
motioned with his body and feet, in cadence with the metre 
of the verse. This reverie and the recitation occupied 
many minutes, and were ultimately succeeded by irony and 
satire cast upon the memory of his fallen enemy. ' His 
skull was broken,' said the king ; ' but I would not ^ose the 
trophy, and now I have made a similar skull of gold. This 
is for my great customs, that all the people may know I am 
the king.' 

" A slave was deputed to one of the apartments of the palace ; 
and, as he returned, he deposited a chair, which his majesty said 
was the regal seat of Dinkara. This piece of workmanship was 
studded all over with gold and silver ornaments, and silver coin 
of different European states. The slave again disappeared, and 
returned, bringing under his escort a son of that unfortunate 
monarch, one of the few male survivors of the race of Dinkara. 
A pallid hue, if so it may be termed, overspread the jetty features 
of the youth, as he bowed trembling before the king. The 
angry glance which marked his reception excited the most painful 
apprehensions ; and the countenance of the young man spoke 
woful agony, as he endeavored to scan the purport of the 
summons. 

" 'Your father,' said the king, addressing himself to the prince, 
*was a, rebel. He was full of pride, and wanted to be a great 



SUPERSTITIONS OV THE ASHANTEES. 27 

king. He forgot when he was my slave. Is not this true ? Then 
he wanted Sarem to help him, and sent gold to make friends. Is 
not that true, too ? He forgot I was his master. He killed my 
sword-bearers, and sent me an insulting message. Now I have 
his skull, and the jaw-bones of his captains. His wives, and you, 
and all the people, are my slaves ; and, when I tell you to die, 
you shall die as your brother did ; but now you shall serve me." 

" The king then desired him to strip off his robe, and show me 
the wounds he had received in battle. The unhappy youth did 
as he was instructed, pointing to five or six honorable scars upon 
his breast, arms, and thighs, which had the appearance of gun- 
shot wounds. 'Now,' said the king to him, with a stern, sarcas- 
tic apathy, ' you know your father was a fool, and that I 
am the king ; you did not know that before ; and so now go 
home until I send for you again.' " 

It is added that this unfortunate youth had been compelled, in 
the presence of the king, to join a chorus in the cruel epicedium, 
or "death-song," which preceded his brother's sacrifice — an 
execution which was performed in his presence, with torture, and 
amidst the mockery and derision of the whole court. 

The inquiry naturally arises, on what principle could such a 
character as that described in the preceding quotations be formed ? 
What had produced the feeling which, from its settledness and 
malignity, indicated the demon rather than the man, and made 
the monarch appear as the very personification of infernal re- 
venge ? Was he remarkable for his natural ferocity and savage- 
ness of disposition ? The reverse was the case. He was polite 
and affable in his general manners ; and especially characterized 
by his tender and affectionate treatment of his children. To his 
religion this fearful trait in his character must be traced. That 
taught him to regard his captive as an implacable foe, who would 
carry his enmity beyond the grave, and of whom, as an evil spirit, 
after death he would have to beware. His religion taught him 
that the torture and sacrifice of an enemy are peculiarly accepta- 
ble to the deities whom he worshipped. "A negro," says Du- 
puis, " can hardly be persuaded that an enemy might be con- 
verted into a friend ; and, as he naturally thirsts after his gold, if 
he is so far successful, nothing can satiate him short of his oppo- 
nent's blood, which is esteemed the portion of the spoil due to 
the tutelar gods, (and acceptable to the shades of his ancestors,) 
whose service it is incumbent on him not to neglect, lest their 
wrath should overwhelm him on a future day." This solves the 



28 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

difficulty, and shows on what principle the most diabolical re- 
venge is sometimes combined in the same individual with great 
natural affection. When once it is ascertained that a people are 
thoroughly imbued with the persuasion that the deities, whom 
they regard as the arbiters of their own fate, require human sac- 
rifices as the most acceptable offerings which their votaries can 
possibly present, — that those deities, in fact, employ themselves 
in promoting and fomenting war, that their altars may continually 
reek with blood, — the horrid scenes enacted in Ashantee cease to 
create surprise. 

Polygamy is another of the distinguishing features of society 
in Africa. The kings and principal persons have usually a great 
number of wives. It is stated that the law allows the king of 
Ashantee to possess three thousand three hundred and thirty-three ; 
but in what consists the charm of this mystic number, which is 
carefully kept up, does not appear. The king has seldom a 
greater number than six with him in the palace at the same time ; 
the rest live at the country residence of the king, and in the capi- 
tal, where two streets are devoted to their use. No persons are 
permitted to approach them but their own female relatives, or the 
king's messengers ; and these only communicate with them at 
the entrances, which are closed at each end with bamboo doors, 
where a guard is placed. When they go abroad, which is not 
often the case, they are attended by a great number of little boys 
with whips of elephant's hide, with which they lash severely all 
who do not immediately turn aside into another path, or throw 
themselves into the bush with their hands before their eyes. 
Their appearance in the more public parts of the city occasions 
great confusion. Caboceers and captains, as well as slaves and 
children, are seen tumbling one over another, to avoid their ap- 
proach. 

When the king of Ashantee signed Bowdich's treaty, three 
hundred of his wives, however, were present as witnesses of the 
transaction ; and, at a public entertainment given by the king of 
Dahomy, Mr. Norris saw seven hundred and thirty of the wives 
of that monarch, who marched in file, bearing liquors and provis- 
ions upon their heads ; and these were followed by many hun- 
dreds more, classed in troops of seventy each, who walked in 
greater state. In Yarriba, even a caboceer has been known to 
possess two thousand wives ; while the king of that country told 
Clapperton that he did not know how many wives and children 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 29 

he had ; but he was sure that his wives alone, hand to hand, 
would reach from Katunga, the capital, to Jannah — a distance, as 
appears from the maps, of considerably more than one hundred 
miles ! On one occasion, he actually visited the traveller in com- 
pany with five hundred wives. 

This latter sovereign makes the services of his wives subservi- 
ent to his pecuniary interests ; for Clapperton remarks that, in 
their journey from Badagry to Katunga, they found in every 
place some of his wives trading for him, and, like other women 
of the common class, carrying large loads upon their heads from 
town to town. The wives of the king of Ashantee, it appears, 
are not thus degraded, but live in a state more in accordance with 
their dignity. Bowdich says that the three hundred whom he 
saw at the signing of the treaty were arrayed in all the magnifi- 
cence which a profusion of gold and silk could furnish. Accord- 
ing to Dupuis, however, their influence is not great. Their 
mediation is considered unavailing in state affairs, and they are 
not permitted, nor do they expect, to receive presents from foreign 
ambassadors ; whereas in Barbary, as in the East, it is of the 
first importance to secure female mediation ; for the determination 
of the sultan is generally formed under the influence of the harem 
or seraglio. 

The number of wives which caboceers and other persons pos- 
sess depends partly on their rank, and partly on their ability to 
purchase them ; for the practice which prevailed in the remote 
ages of patriarchal antiquity is perpetuated among the descend- 
ants of Ham. With them, also, it is the rule that the parent re- 
ceives a sum for his daughter, instead of giving a fortune with 
her, as is the practice in European countries : and it consequently 
follows, that a large family of daughters is a source of wealth to 
an African father. Nor has the husband cause to complain, that 
he is required to pay for every wife ; for in Fantee, and the 
countries near the coast, if a man can only obtain six or ten wives, 
the fruits of their labor are sufficient to enable him to lead a life 
of indolence. 

In the aflfair of courtship the wishes of the female are but little 
consulted, the business being chiefly settled between the suitor 
and her parents. No Ashantean, however, compels his daughter 
to become the wife of one whom she dislikes ; but, if she refuse 
to receive as her husband one of whom her father approves, he 
instantly withdraws from her his support and protection, and pro- 
hibits her mother also from afi'ording her any aid or countenance 



30 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 

whatever. It is not unfrequently the case that infants are mar- 
ried to each other, to promote the connection of families ; and in- 
fants are also frequently wedded to adults, and even to elderly 
men. In such cases, the husband sends a present to the mother, 
who brings up the child for him, until she is old enough to be 
removed to his own house. The caboceers speak of this as a 
good plan for a man who wishes to get gold ; for the most inno- 
cent freedom, when the girl becomes ten or eleven years old, 
proves the occasion of a serious palaver with the husband : and as 
these marriages are not generally known, it happens that such 
palavers frequently occur, and a person has to make compensation 
for taking liberty with a wife when he supposed that he was only 
playing with a child. It is, moreover, a custom in Ashantee to 
contract for a child before it is born. When a man takes a fancy 
to the wife of a caboceer in a state of pregnancy, he consaws the 
infant in. the womb, by the payment of a sum, varying from two 
to ten ounces of gold ; and, should the child prove to be a girl, 
she is brought up for him as his wife. 

The domestic arrangements, in places where polygamy prevails, 
are formed on a different principle from that which regulates an 
English domicile. In Ashantee, Fantee, and the neighboring 
countries, the husband lives separate from his wives, who dwell 
in houses or sheds built contiguous to each other in the form of a 
square ; and in some cases they continue with their mothers. 
They cook and carry food to their husband, but are not allowed 
to partake of a meal in his presence. Sometimes his children eat 
with him, but more frequently he eats alone. On one occasion, 
when Mr. Hutchinson paid a visit to the croom of Apoko, one of 
the greatest men in Ashantee, he had the opportunity of witness- 
ing a domestic scene. About the middle of the day, a large pot 
of yams, and another of boiled fish, were placed in a side room, 
whither Apoko repaired and dined ; after which he divided the 
remaining yams and fish into a given number of portions, when 
the door opened, and about twenty of his sons and daughters re- 
ceived their respective shares in calabashes, with which they came 
furnished. In the after-part of the day, four of his wives arrived 
from Coomassie, a distance of about three miles, with some pre- 
pared food ; but, as he was disposed to sleep, he sent them word 
that they were not to enter the room, but leave the meat, and go 
back again to town. 

The children are left chiefly to the care of their mothers, and 
grow up without correction, until at length, when the perverse- 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES, 31 

ness of a boy can no longer be endured, the Ashantean father 
punishes him by cutting off an ear. Some of the Ashantees, 
however, appeared to admit the force of Mr. Freeman's arguments 
in favor of early and moderate correction. 

Unfaithfulness on the part of the wife is treated with severity. 
Death is sometimes the penalty which both the guilty parties 
have to pay ; but more frequently the injured husband is satisfied 
with a fine from the parents of his offending wife, and another 
from her paramour. Sometimes he cuts off" her nose, if her fami- 
ly are too powerful to be provoked by putting her to death. It 
is not uncommon, however, that the wives and daughters of even 
men in power are employed by their husbands and fathers to 
allure the other sex into crime, in order to involve their victims 
in a palaver, which has ended in their being sold into slavery, 
when they have not been rich enough to pay the required fine. 

In Ashantee, a peculiar provision is made with reference to the 
female sex. One of the king's sisters is constituted the governess 
of the empire, or queen over the females. When this personage, 
on a certain occasion, honored Dupuis with a call, she was accom- 
panied by about one hundred and fifty women and girls, many of 
whom were described as the wives and daughters of men of high 
rank. All the females in the empire are said to be placed under 
her direction and control. But, whatever may be the nature and 
object of the training to which she subjects them, it is certain 
that it is not intended to make the wife the rational com- 
panion and confidential friend of her husband ; for, if an Ashan- 
tean wife is detected in listening to a private conversation 
of her husband, her curiosity is sure to cost her an ear ; and, if 
she betrays a secret with which she has by any means become 
acquainted, her incensed husband punishes her by cutting off" her 
upper lip. The sight of women who have suffered such inflic- 
tions is as common at this day in Coomassie as it was in the time 
of Bowdich. 

In countries where polygamy prevails, it might be presumed, 
that either there is a great disparity between the sexes or that all 
do not marry. In Ashantee, the majority of the males live with- 
out wives. Sometimes a caboceer will give his daughter to a 
confidential slave ; but celibacy is the condition of far the greater 
proportion of the slave population. From this unequal state of 
things, the grossest irregularities naturally follow. In despite of 
the penalties with which incontinence is visited, the violation of 
the marriage contract is notoriously common, and prostitution is 



32 



SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANTEES. 



openly countenanced. In some instances, females are provided 
b}'' the state, and are set apart to their office by public formalities 
and religious ceremonies. As many as two hundred and fifty 
females of this description have been seen together on state occa- 
sions at the court of Dahomy. But scarcely any single circum- 
stance tends to show so clearly the demoralization of negro soci- 
ety, as the fact that wealthy females, on their death-bed, regard it 
as one of the most meritorious acts which they can perform, to 
bequeath to the public a few female slaves. What must be the 
moral condition of a people, where the state lends its authority to 
legalize crime, and the sanctions of religion are employed to in- 
vest vice with the attributes of virtue ! 




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